THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

JAMES   J.  KG    BRIDE 


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A  LAND   OF 
ROMANCE 


THE    BORD1 

ITS   HISTORY   AND   I 


HARDEN 


A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

THE   BORDER 

ITS   HISTORY   AND    LEGEND 

BY 

JEAN    LANG 

WITH 
SIX  PLATES  IN  PHOTOGRAVURE 

FROM  PAINTINGS  BY 
TOM    SCOTT,    R.S.A. 


NEW   YORK 
DODGE    PUBLISHING    COMPANY 

214-220  EAST  TWENTY-THIRD  STREET 


DA 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER    ....  1 

II.  THE  COMING  OF  ARTHUR  .....  33 

III.  THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER       ....  52 

IV.  BORDER  WIZARDS 87 

V.  THE  MONKS 116 

VI.  THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE       .  .  .  .141 

VII.  THE  REIVERS 176 

VIII.  MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS 223 

IX.  BORDER  FEUDS           ......  264 

X.  BORDER  BATTLES 296 

XI.  THE  COVENANTERS 330 

XII.  PRINCE  CHARLIE  ON  THE  BORDER        .  .  .391 

XIII.  SIR  WALTER'S  DAY 424 

INDEX  455 


712526 


THREE  crests  against  the  saffron  sky, 

Beyond  the  purple  plain, 
The  kind  remembered  melody 

Of  Tweed  once  more  again. 

Wan  water  from  the  Border  hills, 

Dear  voice  from  the  old  years, 
Thy  distant  music  lulls  and  stills, 

And  moves  to  quiet  tears. 

Like  a  loved  ghost  thy  fabled  flood 

Fleets  through  the  dusky  land  ; 
Where  Scott,  come  home  to  die,  has  stood, 

My  feet  returning  stand. 

A  mist  of  memory  broods  and  floats, 

The  Border  waters  flow ; 
The  air  is  full  of  ballad  notes, 

Borne  out  of  long  ago. 

Old  songs  that  sung  themselves  to  me, 

Sweet  through  a  boy's  day-dream, 
While  trout  below  the  blossom'd  tree 

Plashed  in  the  golden  stream. 

Twilight,  and  Tweed,  and  Eildon  Hill, 

Fair  and  too  fair  you  be ; 
You  tell  me  that  the  voice  is  still 

That  should  have  welcomed  me. 

ANDREW  LANG. 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

HARDEN,— Frontispiece. 

PACK 

OAKWOOD  TOWER 102 

LONE  ST.  MARY'S 136 

BOWDEN  KIRK          .  .  .  .  .  .212 

HOME  CASTLE 268 

IN  THE  DOWIE  DENS  OF  YARROW  346 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER 

Mithras,  God  of  the  Morning,  our  trumpets  waken  the  Wall  ! 
'  Rome  is  above  the  Nations,  but  Thou  art  over  all  ! ' 
Now  as  the  names  are  answered,  and  the  guards  are  marched  away, 
Mithras,  also  a  soldier,  give  us  strength  for  the  day  ! 

Mithras,  God  of  the  Midnight,  here  where  the  great  bull  dies, 
Look  on  Thy  children  in  darkness.     Oh  take  our  sacrifice  ! 
Many  roads  Thou  hast  fashioned  :  all  of  them  lead  to  the  Light, 
Mithras,  also  a  soldier,  teach  us  to  die  aright ! 

RUDYARD  KIPLING. 

FROM  sea  to  sea  the  line  of  hills  stretches,  a  jagged 
ridge,  with  here  and  there  a  peak  towering  above 
his  fellows.  Round-shouldered  foothills,  green  in 
summer,  in  winter  bleak  and  brown,  are  huddled 
beneath  a  range  that  is  almost  mountainous. 

Here  and  there,  where  volcanic  forces  rent  them 
asunder,  are  hills  parted  by  river  and  valley  from  the 
parent  range,  landmarks  for  the  dwellers  in  the  low- 
lands, sentinels  who  watch  unmoved  the  passing  of 
the  ages,  the  birth  and  death  of  the  peoples  who 
have  made  history. 

'  The  Lowlands  of  Scotland  '  is  the  name  by  which 
the  hilly  land  is  known.  But  the  lands  stand  high 


2  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

above  the  seas  that  lie  to  east  and  west  of  them, 
and  in  that  Debateable  Land  through  which  the 
Tweed  and  the  Tyne,  the  Teviot  and  the  Eden,  the 
Ettrick  and  the  Yarrow  flow  seawards,  one  finds  the 
same  spirit  that  lives  in  the  Highlands  of  the  north 
and  in  the  dwellers  of  the  Swiss  cantons.  There  is 
the  same  passionate  love  of  country,  the  same  heart- 
breaking Heimweh  when  '  The  Border '  is  far  away  ; 
the  same  Sehnsucht  and  aching  longing  for  the  sights 
and  the  sounds  of  the  hills  and  the  rivers  and  the 
speech  of  the  country  whose  children  they  are. 

4  It  may  be  pertinacity,  but  to  my  eye  these 
grey  hills,  and  all  this  wild  Border  country  have 
beauty  peculiar  to  themselves  ;  and  if  I  did  not  see 
the  heather  at  least  once  a  year,  I  think  I  should  die.' 
So  said  Sir  Walter  Scott  to  Washington  Irving. 

4  What  a  glorious  country  this  is ! '  said  Dr.  Norman 
MacLeod  to  a  shepherd  in  Canada. 

4  Ay,'  said  the  man,  *  it 's  a  vera  guid  country.' 

*  Such  majestic  rivers  ! ' 

1  Ou,  ay ! '  was  all  the  reply. 

4  And  such  grand  forests  ! ' 

4  Ay ;  but  there  are  nae  linties  in  the  woods,  an' 
nae  braes  like  Yarrow.' 

Amongst  the  people  of  Northern  Scotland  there 
is  a  belief  that  the  4  hosts,'  as  they  call  the  spirits  of 
mortals  who  have  died,  fly  about  in  clouds,  like  migra- 
tory birds,  and  come  back  to  the  scenes  of  their  earthly 


THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER     3 

transgressions,  unable  to  win  to  Heaven  until  they 
have  made  expiation  for  their  sins  upon  earth.  On 
clear  and  frosty  nights  one  may  hear  them  fighting 
battles  in  the  air  as  men  fight  on  earth.  They 
advance  and  retreat,  retreat  and  advance  against 
one  another,  and  on  the  morning  after  a  battle 
crimson  spots  are  found  on  the  rocks  and  stones, 
stains  that  the  Highland  folk  call  Fuil  nan  sluagh 
— the  Blood  of  the  Hosts.  On  the  Borders  they 
do  not  talk  of  '  the  Hosts.'  Yet,  even  now,  on 
still  and  frosty,  cold  and  starlit  nights,  one  may 
almost  fancy  that  one  can  hear  again  the  clang  of 
armour,  the  shouts  of  fighting  men,  the  tramp  of 
horses,  and  the  moans  of  the  dying.  For  in  that 
Borderland  of  ours,  north  and  south  of  the  Cheviots 
and  of  silvery  Tweed,  there  is  scarce  a  rock  or  stone, 
scarce  a  patch  of  benty  grass  or  tuft  of  heather  that 
has  not  had  its  stain  of  blood  that  flowed,  century 
after  century,  from  the  veins  of  warriors,  than 
whom  none  braver  fell  by  windy  Ilios  in  the  valley 
of  the  Scamander. 

In  the  story  of  the  Borders,  as  in  all  stories  of  the 
past,  it  is  not  merely  to  the  authenticated  chronicles 
of  schoolmen  that  we  must  look.  History  supplies  us 
with  outlines  more  or  less  exact,  more  or  less  vivid. 
But  it  is  not  to  History  that  we  turn  if  outlines  in 
mere  black  and  white  fail  to  satisfy  us.  Tradition 
and  Romance  fill  in  the  colours  of  the  picture  and 


4  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

make  the  people  of  the  past  real  people  of  flesh 
and  blood,  of  like  passions  with  ourselves,  who  live 
and  move,  and  act  over  again  for  us  the  deeds  that 
History  has  recorded.  Sometimes,  in  this  age  of 
specialising,  we  are  too  fond  of  sacrificing  truth  to 
accuracy.  For  an  old  legend  may  give  us  a  truer 
and  more  vivid  picture  of  things  as  they  were  than 
can  the  best  authenticated  facts  of  the  most  pains- 
taking historian. 

When  the  histories  of  other  lands  had  gone  through 
many  chapters,  the  recorded  history  of  Britain  had  not 
yet  begun.  It  was,  as  far  as  other  nations  were  con- 
cerned, as  though  the  Creator  had  stayed  His  hand ; 
and  that  there  the  earth  was  still  without  form  and  void, 
that  darkness  still  brooded  on  the  face  of  the  deep. 

Then,  across  stormy  seas,  came  the  ships  of  Phosni- 
cian  traders,  the  pioneers,  even  in  the  days  of  King 
Solomon,  of  the  host  of  merchant  adventurers.  To 
their  eastern  land  they  brought  back  tales  of  sea- 
girt islands  wherein  were  to  be  found  rich  treasures 
of  tin.  The  Cassiterides  we  now  call  the  Scilly  Isles, 
and  our  sceptical  minds  doubt  the  accounts  of  the 
swarthy  men  with  black  cloaks  and  goat-like  beards, 
who  sold  the  treasures  from  their  mines  to  the  mariners 
from  across  the  sea.  Still,  the  Greek  colonists  from 
Marseilles  bought  tin  from  these  traders,  and  thence- 
forth spoke  of  the  Cassiterides,  or  Tin  Islands.  Other 
gentlemen  adventurers  from  Carthage  and  Phoenicia 


recorded  their  sorrows  as  they  sailed  round  Spain 
and  through  the  Bay,  up  to  Thule  and  home  again. 
But  of  the  people  of  the  Britannic  Isles,  as  even  then 
they  were  called,  no  record  from  those  early  days 
has  come  to  us. 

It  was  not  until  the  Roman  Eagles  had  crossed 
the  Channel  that  Britain's  history  began  to  be  written. 

From  the  conquest  of  Gaul,  Julius  Caesar,  in  55  B.C., 
passed  to  the  conquest  of  a  people  amazingly  like 
those  he  had  left  behind  him  on  the  banks  of  the 
Seine,  the  Loire,  and  the  Rhone.  The  Celts  in 
Britain  owned  the  same  name  as  those  in  Gaul. 
They  were  hardy  little  men,  of  the  Basque,  or  Iberian 
type,  swarthy-skinned,  dark-eyed,  with  curling,  dark 
brown  hair.  Their  dress,  language,  and  weapons 
were  practically  the  same  as  that  of  the  Gauls. 
Like  them  they  lived  in  clans  or  tribes,  while  in 
matters  of  faith  and  religion  the  Druids  were 
supreme  lords  of  the  people  on  both  sides  of  the 
Channel. 

On  the  south  and  east  coasts  the  Celts  were  known 
as  Britons  or  Brythons,  Welsh- speaking  tribes. 
Further  inland,  and  on  the  west  coast,  were  the  Goidels, 
Gaelic-speaking  people.  The  interior  of  the  country, 
and  the  north,  according  to  Caesar,  was  populated 
by  tribes  who  might  be  regarded  as  aborigines,  for  the 
Celts  were  supposed  to  be  immigrants  from  Belgium. 

Each  tribe  owned  a  king  or  queen  of  its  own,  and 


6  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

perpetual  feuds  between  the  tribes  taught  the  natives 
of  Britain,  from  the  earliest  days,  how  to  fight  and 
how  to  die. 

The  men  are  said  to  have  been  possessed  of  much 
4  bodily  strength,  endurance,  and  bravery — despising 
death.'  They  used  the  Homeric  war-chariots,  and 
the  charioteers  who  lashed  on  their  horses  against  the 
advancing  foe  were  of  the  princes  of  the  land.  They 
had  weapons  of  iron  and  a  coinage  of  gold,  and  so 
would  have  seemed  more  than  peers  of  Achilles  and 
the  other  immortals.  Yet,  so  we  are  told,  in  warfare 
at  any  rate  they  stained  their  bodies  blue,  and 
stripped  to  fight,  like  the  Jack  Tars  of  later  times. 
Like  the  Thibetans  of  to-day  they  were  polyandrous, 
ten  or  twelve  men  having  one  wife  in  common. 
Against  the  compact  squadrons  of  Roman  cavalry  the 
chariots  had  to  fall  back  in  rout,  and  the  foot-soldier, 
with  no  defence  but  his  short  javelin  and  broad-sword, 
was  no  match  for  the  Roman  legionary,  mail-clad, 
brass-helmeted,  with  shield  and  short  knife,  or  armed 
with  plummet  and  arrow.  Barbari  their  conquerors 
called  them,  as  they  had  called  all  the  nations  who 
only  saw  the  yellow  Tiber  when  they  were  brought, 
bound,  to  Rome,  to  form  part  of  a  Roman  triumph. 

But  one  is  inclined  to  question  the  correctness 
of  the  term  as  applied  to  those  ancestors  of  ours 
who  lived  more  than  a  thousand  years  ago.  Their 
dwellings,  so  we  gather,  were  holes  in  the  earth,  or 


THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER     7 

huts  encircled  by  ditch  and  rampart,  and  thatched 
with  bougies  plastered  over  with  mud — a  decided 
improvement  on  the  mia-mia  of  the  Australian 
aboriginal  of  to-day.  Their  weapons  for  hunting 
and  for  fighting  were  first  of  all  made  of  flint  and 
stone.  Arrow-heads  abound  in  Roxburghshire  and 
Berwickshire  to-day.  Later,  by  the  time  the  Romans 
came,  iron  weapons  they  also  knew  and  could  fashion 
with  rude  skill.  Exquisite  designs  we  find  in  pottery 
and  enamel,  far  exceeding  in  beauty  of  colour,  line, 
and  design  anything  that  could  be  achieved  by  their 
conquerors.  That  they  had  heavy  wains  we  also 
know,  for  wheels,  cut  out  of  one  solid  block  of  wood, 
have  been  found,  and  the  existence  of  waggons 
presupposes  the  existence  of  roads.  We  cannot 
fairly  call  them  barbarians,  yet  of  their  civilisation 
who  can  speak  with  authority  ?  We  must  content 
ourselves  to  remain  agnostic  and  say  '  I  do  not 
know.' 

For  nearly  a  century  after  Julius  Caesar  had  paid 
his  fleeting  visit,  Rome  practically  left  Britain  alone. 
Later,  its  armies  returned,  fought  and  won,  and 
came  to  regard  the  conquered  parts  of  the  islands 
as  a  province  of  Rome — Britannia  Romana.  By 
55  A.D.  they  had  forced  their  way  northward,  but 
the  Humber  bounded  their  territory,  and  Scotland 
was  still  a  terra  incognita  to  them.  Beyond  the 
Humber  lay  the  land  of  a  people  called  the  Brigantes, 


8  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

against  whom  the  Romans  waged  constant  war. 
Still  further  beyond  the  domains  of  the  Brigantes, 
rumour  spoke  of  a  nation,  fierce  and  warlike,  called 
the  Caledonii.  Tales  of  these  people,  filtered  through 
the  Brigantes,  led  the  Romans  to  think  that  the 
Barbari  of  the  north  were  barbarians  of  even  less 
civilisation  than  those  of  the  southern  part  of  the 
island. 

In  78  A.D.  Julius  Agricola  came  to  govern  Britain. 
Speedily  he  introduced  into  a  country,  through 
which  his  sword  was  still  carving  its  way,  the  civilisa- 
tion of  Rome.  Temples,  baths,  courts  of  justice 
were  built.  Schools  were  founded,  and  the  young 
4  barbarian  ' — so-called — was  taught  how  to  speak 
the  language,  to  wear  the  dress,  and  to  cultivate  the 
manners  and  the  morals — these  not  always  impeccable 
— of  the  Roman  citizen.  In  80  A.D.  Agricola  did  a 
march  northwards.  In  the  summer  of  that  year 
the  Roman  Eagle  first  crossed  the  Border,  and  the 
country  as  far  as  the  Tanaus — evidently  the  North 
Tyne  in  Haddingtonshire — was  laid  waste.  As 
Agricola  advanced,  he  erected  a  chain  of  forts, 
garrisoned  them,  and  did  what  he  could  to  fortify 
the  isthmus  between  the  Firths  of  Forth  and  Clyde. 
Later  he  '  crossed  an  arm  of  the  sea  '  on  the  west, 
in  '  the  first  ship,'  subduing  c  unknown  tribes,'  and 
posting  garrisons  in  a  district  from  whose  shores  he 
saw  the  blue  coast-line  of  Ireland  and  longed  for 


THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER     9 

fresh  conquests.  In  the  summer  that  followed,  the 
fleet  came  to  support  the  army.  In  the  same  camp, 
so  Tacitus  tells  us,  it  frequently  happened  that  the 
infantry  and  cavalry  were  mixed  with  the  marines, 
4  all  joyfully  recounting  their  adventures  and  magni- 
fying their  exploits  ;  the  soldier  boastfully  describing 
the  dark  forests  he  had  passed,  the  mountains  he 
had  climbed,  and  the  barbarians  he  had  put  to  rout ; 
the  sailor,  no  less  important,  speaking  of  storms 
and  tempests,  the  wonders  of  the  deep,  and  the  spirit 
with  which  he  conquered  wind  and  wave.'  For 
three  successive  years  Agricola's  campaign  in  Scotland 
continued. 

A  victory  over  the  Caledonians  at  Mons  Graupius 
in  85  A.D.  brought  it  to  a  close,  and  the  circumnaviga- 
tion of  Britain  by  the  Roman  fleet  closed  a  great 
general's  career  in  North  Britain. 

Of  these  campaigns  we  have  no  record  save  that 
of  Tacitus,  son-in-law  of  the  victorious  general,  and 
that  Tacitus  never  set  foot  in  Britain  considerably 
takes  away  from  his  value  as  a  historian.  We  may 
presume  that  his  knowledge  was  gained  from  the 
experience  of  the  Roman  legionaries,  and  the  historian 
of  our  own  day  who  wrote  the  history  of  a  campaign 
in  India  from  the  accounts  of  our  own  '  Tommies,' 
with  their  healthy  scorn  of  '  niggers,'  their  manners 
and  customs,  might  expect  to  be  liberally  discounted. 
But  to  Tacitus  we  owe  what  slight  knowledge  we 


10  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

possess  of  the  large-limbed,  red-haired,  fearless  folk 
that  he  describes  as  the  Caledonii  Britanni. 

From  his  story  it  would  appear  that  the  Romans 
found  the  Barbari  of  the  north  much  less  untutored 
savages  than  they  had  previously  supposed. 

They  were  warriors  who  combined  with  utter 
fearlessness  a  shrewd  knowledge  of  military  tactics. 
As  archers  their  skill  was  much  superior  to  that  of  the 
Romans.  Even  the  defeat  of  Mons  Graupius — when, 
in  addition  to  Agricola's  four  legions  of  Roman  veterans, 
there  fought  eight  thousand  infantry  and  three  thou- 
sand horsemen  of  British  auxiliaries — did  not  bring 
upon  them  the  demoralisation  of  a  conquered  nation. 

In  119  A.D.  there  was  lively  insurrection  amongst 
the  peoples  of  Rome's  new  province,  and  the  Emperor 
Hadrian  himself  came  to  quell  it.  Northwards  he 
marched,  until,  with  his  legions,  he  had  reached  the 
range  of  hills  that  lies  between  South  Britain,  now 
more  or  less  civilised,  and  the  lands  of  the  Caledonii 
Barbari. 

It  was  no  light  task  which  the  Emperor  then 
undertook.  Seventy-three  miles  of  desolate  land 
lay  between  the  North  Sea  on  the  east,  and  the  Solway 
Firth  that  finds  its  way  into  the  Atlantic.  Across 
those  miles  of  moorland,  bleak  and  trackless,  runs 
a  chain  of  hills  where,  even  now,  more  than  a  thousand 
years  later,  the  cry  of  the  curlew  or  the  bleat  of  a 
Cheviot  sheep  is  the  only  sound  to  break  the  stillness. 


THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER    11 

From  sea  to  sea,  across  the  hills,  did  Hadrian  set 
himself  to  build  a  stupendous  monument  to  the 
might  of  Rome,  a  vast  barrier  to  act  as  a  breakwater 
when  the  enemies  of  his  Empire  should  surge  and 
beat  themselves  in  vain  against  it. 

Not  only  was  the  wall  meant  as  a  barrier  against 
the  peoples  of  the  north.  It  was  a  defence  against 
those  natives  of  the  southern  land  who  should  prove 
disloyal.  It  had  its  fosse,  its  vallum,  and  its  camps. 
At  distances  of  about  four  miles  along  the  line  stations 
were  erected,  each  one  a  military  city.  In  addition 
to  these,  castella,  or  mile  castles,  were  placed  wherever 
a  river  or  deep  defile  led  to  extra  danger  and  a  necessity 
for  extra  watchfulness  on  the  part  of  the  defenders 
of  the  Wall.  Between  each  mile  castle  were  four 
watch-towers,  or  stone  sentry-boxes,  so  that  at  sight 
or  sound  of  danger  the  alarm  could  be  sent  speeding 
from  sentry  to  sentry,  from  castle  to  station,  until 
the  Wall  was  all  awake  and  astir,  ready  along  all 
its  seventy-three  miles  for  the  assault  of  the  enemy. 

Ten  thousand  men  formed  its  garrison,  and,  night 
and  day,  it  was  patrolled.  The  officers  of  the  legions 
were  Romans,  some  of  them  British  born,  and  the 
ruins  of  the  villas  wherein  they  tried,  in  the  bleak 
Borderland,  to  emulate  the  comforts  and  the  luxuries 
of  their  own  blue- sky ed  Italy,  may  yet  be  seen 
dotting  the  lonely  hillsides. 

Fragments  of  red  Samian  ware  made  in  Gaul  and 


12  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Italy,  of  the  grey  pottery  made  at  a  Roman  factory 
in  Kent,  of  fair  glass,  millstones  from  Andernach 
on  the  Rhine,  jewels  of  gold  and  rich  intaglios  are 
still  to  be  found  there,  almost  for  the  digging.  The 
ruins  of  baths,  and  the  earthen  pipes  with  which 
they  brought  hot  air  into  their  houses,  show  that 
they  tried  to  make  the  best  of  the  rigorous  climate 
in  which  their  lot  was  cast. 

It  was  a  climate  that  was  merciless  to  the  young 
patricians.  The  vast  number  of  monumental  stones 
to  lads  scarcely  out  of  their  teens,  and  to  the  children 
of  officers,  show  us  that  the  Borders  were  to  the 
soldiers  of  Hadrian  what  India  has  been  to  those 
Britons  who  have  gone  to  serve  their  monarch  across 
the  sea,  and  who  have  left  behind  them  in  the  far 
country  only  the  transient  record  of  words  carved  on 
a  stone  that  marks  a  grave. 

From  almost  every  part  of  Europe  the  Roman 
legions  were  enlisted.  The  languages  spoken  must 
have  suggested  the  Tower  of  Babel.  The  name  of 
the  gods  they  worshipped  was  Legion. 

To  supply  the  wants  of  that  great  host,  traders 
were  constantly  coming  and  going,  and  the  towns 
that  followed  the  line  of  the  Wall  from  Solway  to 
Tyne  were  as  the  garrison  towns  of  to-day — places 
where  all  the  indulgences  and  vices  that  can  be  the 
undoing  of  the  fighting  man  in  his  hours  of  ease 
were  abundantly  catered  for  by  the  parasites  of  the 


THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER    13 

army.  What  Port  Said  is  now,  the  Wall  must  then 
have  been.  It  is  not  easy  for  us  who  now  only  know 
these  moors  in  desolation  to  realise  what  the  Wall 
was  when  it  was  4  one  roaring,  rioting,  cock-fighting, 
wolf-baiting,  horse-taming  town,  from  Ituna  on  the 
west  to  Segedunum  on  the  cold  eastern  beach.5 

Yet,  even  now,  Time  and  Nature  have  not  succeeded 
in  effacing  the  Wall  that  was  once  the  pride  of  Rome. 
At  Chesters,  which  the  country  people  still  correctly 
call  Cilurnum,  one  can  trace  the  plan  of  each  building 
with  perfect  clearness,  and  even  study  the  manners 
and  customs  of  the  Spanish  legion,  the  Astures, 
who  garrisoned  that  town  by  the  river  Tyne. 

The  most  solitary  of  the  stations,  Borcovicus,  is 
on  the  Wall  near  the  lonely  Northumbrian  lakes, 
between  Chesters  and  Gilsland.  There,  perhaps  better 
than  anywhere  else,  one  realises  the  solitude  of  the 
men  who  paced  the  eight-foot  stone  rampart  by  night 
and  by  day,  ever  ready,  ever  watchful  for  the  foe 
that  in  the  end  triumphed.  There,  too,  one  can  but 
marvel  at  the  audacious  courage  of  the  people  who, 
in  order  to  attack  a  hitherto  undefeated  enemy,  had 
first  to  cross  open  country  and  then  to  storm  preci- 
pices from  the  tops  of  which  Roman  legionaries  de- 
fended their  Wall  with  all  the  weapons  and  deadly 
engines  of  warfare  that  then  were  known.  Yet, 
again  and  yet  again,  did  these  peoples  of  the  north 
break  through  the  Wall.  Meet  ancestors  they  of  men 


14  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

who  took  many  a  South  African  kopje,  who  swept 
up  the  heights  at  Alma,  who  swarmed  up  the  rocks 
at  Darghai. 

Stations  marked  the  line  of  the  Wall.  Camps  of 
equal  size  and  importance  with  those  on  the  slopes 
of  the  Cheviots  were  dotted  here  and  there  through 
the  Border.  The  camp  at  Newstead,  near  Melrose, 
between  Eildons  and  Tweed,  that  is  now  yielding 
up  such  rich  archaeological  treasures — helmets  and 
masks  of  brass  and  of  copper,  richly  chased ;  jewels 
and  vases,  weapons  and  implements,  tent-pegs  of 
oak,  skeletons,  bones  of  men  and  women  and  animals, 
coins,  altars,  and  what  not — was  then  Trimontium. 
And  when  one  has  just  crossed  the  Border  by  the 
Carter  Fell  on  one's  way  north  and  has  a  first 
glimpse  of  the  Three  Hills — 

e  Three  crests  against  the  saffron  sky, 
Beyond  the  purple  plain,' — 

the  meaning  of  the  title  '  Trimontium '  becomes 
very  clear.  For  are  not  our  eyes  beholding  what 
Roman  eyes  once  saw  when  the  legions  of  Rome 
had  marched  across  the  Cheviots  into  the  unknown 
land  of  the  peoples  of  the  north  ? 

Soon  they  came  to  divide  these  peoples,  the 
Barbari,  into  two  separate  nations.  North  of  the 
Forth  were  the  Caledonii ;  south  of  the  Forth,  as 
far  as  the  Wall,  were  the  Maetae.  Later,  these  two 


THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER    15 

'  nations  '  came  to  be  called  the  North  and  South 
Picts. 

The  Picts  or  Yeats,  supposed  to  be  of  Scythian 
origin,  were  the  '  Little  People '  who  gave  their  name  of 
Pecht  or  Pict  to  the  Pentland  Hills — wiry  little  men, 
hunters  and  horsemen  and  fighters,  who  knew  nothing 
of  husbandry.  Their  characteristics  might  quite  well 
go  to  confirm  the  old  legend  that  Britain's  first 
colonists  came  from  Troyland  and  were  descendants 
of  ^Eneas.  They  held  their  rivers  sacred,  and  '  fish 
eater  '  was  the  term  of  scorn  applied  by  them  to  the 
Saxons  when  they  came.  Equally  scornful  was  the 
name  given  to  the  Picts  by  Taliessen,  the  Cymric 
bard :  '  Kiln  distillers,  intoxicating  the  drunkards.  .  .  . 
Didactic  bards  with  swelling  breasts,  who  will  meet 
around  mead-vessels  and  sing  wrong  poetry.' 

The  secret  of  brewing  heather  ale  was  said  to  have 
been  theirs  and  to  have  perished  with  them. 

'  From  the  bonny  bells  of  heather 

They  brewed  a  drink  langsyne, 
Was  sweeter  far  than  honey, 

Was  stronger  far  than  wine. 
They  brewed  it  and  they  drank  it, 

And  lay  in  a  blessed  swound 
For  days  and  days  together 

In  their  dwellings  underground.' 

Tradition  says  that  at  the  end  of  their  last  battle 
with  the  Scots  only  two  Picts,  father  and  son,  were 
left  alive.  The  King  of  the  Scots  asked  the  old  man 


16  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

for  the  recipe  for  making  heather  ale.  On  one 
condition,  said  the  man,  would  he  give  it — his  son 
must  be  slain,  as  he  dared  not  betray  the  secret 
while  he  lived. 

'  They  took  the  son  and  bound  him 

Neck  and  heels  in  a  thong, 
And  a  lad  took  him  and  swung  him, 

And  flung  him  far  and  strong. 
And  the  sea  swallowed  his  body, 

Like  that  of  a  child  of  ten : — 
And  there  on  the  cliff  stood  the  father, 

Last  of  the  dwarfish  men.' 

Then  did  they  seek  from  the  last  of  his  race  the 
secret,  but  he  only  answered  : — 

'Though  ye  should  me  kill 

I  will  no  you  tell 
How  we  brew  the  yill 
Frae  the  heather  bell.' 

So,  according  to  legend,  perished  the  last  of  the 
Picts.  That  the  Picts  were  never  exterminated  by 
the  Scots,  or  by  any  other  race,  and  that  their  blood 
is  in  our  veins  to-day,  may  rob  the  story  of  the  Heather 
Ale  of  some  of  its  value.  But  around  these  '  Little 
People  '  there  must  ever  hang  the  charm  of  mystery. 
Unclaimed  myths  have  come  to  attach  themselves 
to  the  swarthy  little  fighting  men  of  prehistoric 
times,  whose  stills  were  underground.  Is  not  '  the 
Brown  Man  of  the  moors,  who  stays  beneath  the 
heather  bell  '—still  dreaded  by  dwellers  in  the  lonely 


THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER    17 

Rede  valley — a  Pict,  pure  and  simple  ?  And  tradition 
would  have  us  believe  that  our  post-arboreal  ancestors 
on  the  Border  are  in  verity  the  fairy  folk,  whose 
arrow-heads  of  flint  are  known  by  the  country  folk 
of  our  own  day  as  c  elf  shots  '  or  l  fairy  arrows.' 

In  reality  these  Pechts  or  Picts  were  only  the 
Goidel,  Gaelic  Welsh-speaking  Celts,  whose  capital 
was  said  to  be  Guidi,  now  Inchkeith,  in  the  Firth  of 
Forth.  According  to  the  Roman  historian  they  had 
neither  forts  nor  cities,  but  lived  in  wattled  huts  in 
the  woods,  or  in  marshes.  Of  agriculture  they  knew 
nothing,  and  they  lived  by  the  chase.  They  fought 
naked,  from  chariots,  and  had  pictures  of  animals 
tattooed  in  blue  upon  their  bodies.  They  were  fleet 
of  foot,  and  their  horses  were  small  and  swift.  Like 
the  Indians  of  the  Andes,  some  mysterious  food  they 
knew,  a  fragment  of  which,  the  size  of  a  bean,  was 
sufficient  to  keep  a  man  in  life  for  long.  To  their 
arms  of  targe  and  dirk,  in  later  days  they  added  a 
short  spear  with  a  rattling  brass  knob  at  the  handle. 
They  were  redoubtable  thieves,  '  looted  most  liberally,' 
and  were  reputed  to  be  able  to  hide  for  days  in 
their  bogs  with  only  their  heads  above  the  quaking 
morass. 

In  the  years  of  the  Roman  Wall,  when  what  are 
now  well-cultivated  haughs  were  huge  mosses,  and 
when  much  of  what  are  now  ploughed  and  fertile 
fields  were  lochs  or  marshes,  the  little  Picts  must 


18  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

have  found  it  an  excellent  thing  to  feel  quite  at  home 
in  an  atmosphere  of  marsh  gas,  where  frogs  croaked 
and  bitterns  boomed.  Their  lake-dwellings,  known 
as  Crannogs,  were  actually  built,  like  Venice,  on  piles 
driven  into  the  bottom  of  the  loch  or  bog ;  and  occasion- 
ally, in  a  moss,  the  remains  of  a  pavement  of  timber 
or  of  flagstones,  and  the  site  of  a  hearth  with  its 
accumulation  of  ashes,  are  laid  bare  by  the  drainer's 
spade. 

In  a  moss  at  Whiteburn,  in  Berwickshire,  in  1868, 
drainers  came  upon  such  a  structure.  Stakes  were 
driven  down  perpendicularly,  and  filled  in  by  a 
quantity  of  branches  and  twigs — birch,  hazel,  and  a 
little  oak — woven  together.  Inside  was  much 
withered  grass  and  bracken,  and  the  bones  of  deer. 
Twenty  years  previously,  in  another  moss  on  the  same 
estate,  a  similar  discovery  was  made.  According  to 
a  workman  they  found  '  caves  heaped  fu'  o'  hazel 
nuts  a'  aboot  it ' — probably  the  drift  of  autumn 
winds  across  a  loch — and  the  Picts'  descendant 
surmised  it  to  be  a  place  '  where  the  little  auld  folk 
langsyne  dried  their  corn.' 

'  A  very  warlike  nation,  and  very  greedy  of 
slaughter,'  is  the  description  given  of  the  Picts  by  a 
Roman  historian,  and  in  those  years  when  they 
warred  with  Romans  and  Scots  and  Saxons,  they 
must  surely  have  had  their  fill  of  fighting.  Most 
surely,  too,  must  they  have  tried  to  the  uttermost 


THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER    19 

what  the  historian  gave  as  one  of  their  most  valuable 
characteristics :  '  They  can  endure  hunger,  cold,  and 
any  labour  whatsoever.' 

To  cope  with  these  people  in  208  A.D.  the  Emperor 
Severus  came  to  Britain.  He  was  a  feeble,  gouty 
old  man  of  over  threescore,  but  he  had  an  indomitable 
spirit.  Accompanied  by  his  two  profligate  sons,  an 
army  gathered  from  all  quarters,  and  his  whole 
court,  he  came  to  stamp  out  an  insurrection.  For 
Lupus,  a  Roman  general,  had  leagued  himself  with 
the  Border  folk,  and  the  whole  of  Maeatia  was  in 
arms  against  the  Emperor.  So  frail  was  the  old 
man  that  he  had  to  be  borne  on  a  litter,  yet,  as  he 
led  his  vast  army  northwards,  past  the  Wall,  through 
the  Borders,  and  on  further  still,  to  '  the  extremity 
of  the  island,'  he  endured  a  campaign  of  the  most 
rigorous  hardship.  The  country  he  marched  through 
was  more  or  less  of  a  jungle.  For  mile  upon  mile 
there  stretched  dense  forests,  with  thick  coverts  of 
hazel,  birch,  and  oak,  which  sheltered  not  only  wolves 
and  bears,  ready  to  pick  up  any  straggler,  but  which 
served  as  magnificent  hiding-places  for  an  ever- 
vigilant  enemy.  The  huge  fierce  white  cattle,  whose 
degenerate  descendants  are  still  to  be  seen  at  Chilling- 
ham,  were  a  terror  to  the  soldiers.  And  when  one 
sees  the  skulls  and  horns  that  Border  mosses  still 
disclose,  one  does  not  marvel.  In  Selkirkshire  the 
skull  of  a  urus,  as  the  enormous  brutes  were  then 


20  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

called,  has  been  found  with  a  Roman  spear  embedded 
in  it. 

Far  up  their  sides  the  hills  were  clothed  with  trees, 
behind  each  of  which  might — and  frequently  did — 
lurk  an  unseen  enemy.  The  flat  lands  and  valleys 
were  constantly  found  to  be  quaking  bogs  or  reedy 
marshes.  There  stags  and  badgers,  wolves  and  bears, 
might  drink  in  safety,  and  amongst  otters  and  beavers, 
herons  and  wild  duck,  the  light-footed  natives  of  the 
land  found  sanctuary  and  home,  while  the  armour- 
clad  legions  of  Rome  were  heavily  handicapped. 

As  in  the  days  of  the  War  of  Scottish  Independence, 
it  was  a  guerilla  warfare  that  went  on.  The  skirts 
of  the  army  were  harassed  by  the  enemy  incessantly 
and  at  every  turn,  and  yet  never  once  did  the  Roman 
legions  encounter  their  foe  in  any  big  engagement. 
The  wolves  north  of  the  Wall  must  have  grown  fat 
during  that  campaign,  for  in  three  years  Severus  is 
said  to  have  lost  fifty  thousand  men.  Nobly  did  the 
old  man  grapple  with  his  difficulties.  He  had  cause- 
ways formed  through  the  marshes  by  which  his  soldiers 
could  reach  their  foes  and  fight  them  on  a  firm  footing. 
He  had  forests  hewn  down,  bridges  constructed, 
forts  and  walls  strengthened,  and  roads  carried  over 
the  hills.  To  those  days  we  may  probably  date 
Watling  Street  (Saxon  Wathol,  a  road  or  way),  and 
the  Wheel  Causeway.  The  former  begins  at  the 
entrenchments  of  Chew  Green  on  the  Coquet,  proceeds 


THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER    21 

north-west  across  the  Cheviots,  and  runs  to  within  a 
mile  of  St.  Boswells  village,  in  Roxburghshire,  dis- 
appearing there  to  reappear  at  Newstead  (Trimon- 
tium)  where  it  crosses  the  Tweed,  to  appear  again 
and  cross  the  moors  on  Soutra  Hill.  The  '  Wheel 
Causey,'  of  more  uncertain  origin,  runs  through  the 
wilds  of  Cumberland,  across  the  Border,  and  is  supposed 
to  be  a  continuation  of  the  Roman  '  Maiden  Way.' 

Finally,  having  gained  a  temporary  triumph, 
Severus  got  so  far  homewards  as  York,  and  there 
he  died,  but  not  before  he  had  heard  that  all  his 
labours  had  been  in  vain,  and  Caledonians  and  Maetae 
were  again  defying  him. 

Short  were  the  reigns  of  the  emperors  who  followed 
Severus.  Emperor  succeeded  emperor,  and  assassina- 
tion awaited  each  in  turn.  In  Rome  was  intrigue, 
jealousy,  murder.  On  the  Wall  the  legions  kept 
their  watch.  The  Three  Hundred  Years'  War  still 
went  on. 

Innumerable  were  the  gods  that  were  worshipped 
on  the  Wall.  The  Romans  had  found  peoples  bowing 
down  to  strange  gods.  Many  of  these  were  only  their 
own  deities  under  other  names.  Many  others  they 
adopted  as  their  own.  The  Celts  found  '  spirits  in 
trees,  gods  in  the  running  brooks,  temples  in  stones, 
and  mystery  everywhere.'  Their  religion  was  pan- 
theistic. They  believed  in  the  transmigration  of  souls. 

'  I  have  been  in  many  shapes  before  I  attained 


22  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

a  congenial  form.  I  have  been  a  narrow  blade  of 
a  sword,  I  have  been  a  drop  in  the  air,  I  have  been 
a  shining  star,  I  have  been  a  word  in  a  book,  I  have 
been  a  book  in  the  beginning,  I  have  been  a  light  in 
a  lantern  a  year  and  a  half,  I  have  been  a  bridge 
for  passing  over  threescore  rivers  ;  I  have  journeyed 
as  an  eagle,  I  have  been  a  boat  on  the  sea,  I  have 
been  a  director  in  battle,  I  have  been  a  sword  in  the 
hand,  I  have  been  a  shield  in  fight,  I  have  been  the 
string  of  a  harp,  I  have  been  enchanted  for  a  year 
in  the  foam  of  water.  There  is  nothing  in  which  I 
have  not  been.'  So  sings  the  bard  Taliessen. 

The  pagan  was  buried  with  his  sword  beside  him, 
food  for  his  awaking  ready  at  his  hand,  and  his 
horse  and  dog  and  favourite  servants  were  slaughtered 
to  bear  him  company.  When  we  look  at  an  officer's 
funeral  of  the  present  day,  do  we  realise  that  we 
are  perpetuating  the  burial  rites  of  pagan  times  ? 

The  religion  of  the  Celts  and  of  their  high  priests, 
the  Druids,  came  from  the  East,  and  was  very  much 
that  of  the  Persians.  They  worshipped  the  sun  and 
elemental  fire,  and  the  Belling  Hill  and  Bellingham 
in  the  Cheviots,  the  Bel  Hill  near  St.  Abbs,  Astaroth, 
a  hill  in  Beaumont  Water,  and  many  another  place- 
name  still  speak  to  us  of  the  days  when  our  fore- 
fathers prayed  to  the  sun  and  to  the  moon.  Only 
of  late  years  have  the  Beltane  fires  on  Midsummer 
Eve  been  discontinued  on  the  Border  hills.  At 


THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER    23 

Peebles,  to  this  day,  we  have  the  Beltane  feast  and 
the  Beltane  queen  ;  and  is  not  the  girl  who  washes 
her  face  in  May  dew  still  paying  homage  to  the  fair 
sun  god  ? 

In  the  Borders  we  may  find  but  few  traces  of  sun 
worship,  but  we  have  not  to  go  very  far  north  in 
Scotland  to  find  survivals  of  passing  through  the 
fire  to  Baal,  of  strange  ceremonials  to  provide  for 
the  safety  of  man  and  beast  by  going  in  procession 
sunwise,  of  invocations  to  the  Virgin  and  the  saints 
that  begin  by  the  suppliant  facing  the  sun  and  kissing 
a  hand  towards  it.  But  the  hearts  of  those  who 
pray  are  void  of  offence,  for  Christianity  was  grafted 
on  to  Paganism  in  early  days  by  saintly  hands  and 
pure  hearts  that  were  not  swift  to  see  evil.  To  their 
converts  they  were  not  likely  to  apply  the  words 
of  Job,  c  If  I  beheld  the  sun  when  it  shined,  or  the 
moon  walking  in  brightness,  and  my  heart  hath 
been  secretly  enticed,  or  my  mouth  hath  kissed  my 
hand,  this  also  were  an  iniquity  to  be  punished  by 
the  judge,  for  I  should  have  denied  the  God  that 
is  above.' 

In  a  moss  in  Liddesdale,  between  the  parishes  of 
Castleton  and  Canobie,  there  is  a  Druids'  cairn, 
cromlech,  and  circle.  The  Ninestanerigg  is  supposed 
to  be  Druidical,  and  all  over  the  Borderland  are 
traces  of  the  places  where  were  practised  mysteries 
that  Egypt  and  Phrygia  and  Phoenicia  knew. 


24  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Only  rough-hewn  stones,  uncertain  '  circles,'  and 
quite  uncertified  hills  and  mounds  called  '  Druidical,' 
are  left  to  remind  us  of  the  priests  that  ruled  our 
forefathers.  But  there  is  a  legend  that  tells  us  that 
the  souls  of  even  the  virtuous  Druids  could  not  enter 
a  Christian  Heaven ;  they  were  given  a  Heaven  of 
their  own,  a  Paradise  of  pleasant  islands,  called  the 
Green  Isles  of  the  Ocean.  No  one  knows  where  those 
fair  islands  lie,  but  if  you  go  to  St.  David's  Churchyard 
in  Wales,  and  from  there  take  a  turf  and  stand  upon 
it  on  the  seashore,  you  may  behold  the  green  islands, 
floating  out  on  the  waves,  far,  far  away.  In  bygone 
days,  they  say,  the  Druids  would  sometimes  come 
across  the  sea  and  carry  away  the  Welsh  in  their 
boats.  And  he  who  visited  the  Green  Isles  imagined 
on  his  return  that  he  had  been  absent  for  only  a  few 
hours,  whereas  whole  centuries  had  passed  away. 

By  the  Roman  authorities  Druidism  was  put  down 
with  a  stern  hand.  The  conquering  nation  must  in 
every  age  do  its  best  to  impose  its  own  religion  on 
the  natives  of  the  land  it  would  add  to  its  empire. 
But  the  men  on  the  Wall — Gauls,  Spaniards,  Dutch- 
men, Germans,  Britons,  Roman  citizens — all  the 
charivari  and  mixture  of  races  that  were  dumped 
down  in  one  vast  camp  on  foreign  soil,  evidently 
saw  no  harm  in  adding  one  god,  more  or  less,  to  their 
already  complete  list  of  deities.  Coventina,  a  local 
water  nymph,  is  responsible  for  a  well  at  Carrawburgh 


THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER    25 

(Procolitia),  where  a  rich  treasure  trove  of  about 
twenty  thousand  coins  of  gold,  silver  and  brass  and 
jewels,  gifts  of  her  worshippers — and  amongst  other 
things  a  human  skull  full  of  money — was  found  by 
the  excavators.  Minerva,  as  mother  of  the  gods, 
with  her  lunar  crescents  to  identify  her  with  the 
moon,  had,  of  course,  many  altars  in  her  honour. 
Another  altar  bears  the  inscription  : — 

'Eutychus,  a  freedman  of  the  consul,  dedicates  this 
to  Sylvanus  Pantheus,  for  the  safety  of  the  Tribune 
Rufinus  and  his  wife  Lucilla.' 

But  apparently  the  great  god  Pan  must  have  been 
making  music  '  down  by  the  reeds  in  the  river,' 
and  heeded  not  the  prayers  of  Eutychus,  for,  according 
to  an  epitaph  in  the  chancel  of  Elsden  Church  in 
Northumberland,  Lucilla  buried  her  husband,  who 
died  in  the  prime  of  his  life,  not  under  blue  Italian 
skies,  but 

'  ...  on  the  grey  hill 
Where  rains  weep,  and  the  cuilews  shrill, 
And  the  brown  water  wanders  by.' 

Mithras,  god  of  the  sun,  shared  with  the  other 
gods  the  worship  of  the  men  on  the  Wall. 
As  one  looks  back  across  the  ages,  one  can  well 
understand  why  Mithras  should  have  been  a  god 
beloved  by  the  generations  of  soldiers  who  endured 
hardness  in  a  foreign  land,  and  who  reared  a  cavern 
temple  at  Borcovicus,  where  now  the  mountain 


26  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

heartsease  grows,  where  the  sheep  scurry  away, 
fearful  at  the  sound  of  a  human  step,  and  where  the 
wail  of  the  curlew  and  cry  of  the  pewit  are  carried 
far  across  a  desolation  of  moor  and  sky. 

The  Mysteries  of  Mithras  were  celebrated  in  Thrace, 
Egypt,  Phoenicia,  and  nearly  all  the  lands  of  the  East, 
and  to  Rome  the  religion  was  brought  by  Eastern 
traders.  At  the  time  that  the  Romans  built  the  Wall 
it  was  a  fashionable  prevailing  form  of  worship  all 
over  the  western  part  of  the  Roman  Empire.  No 
one  could  be  admitted  into  the  mysteries  of  the 
Persian  sun  god  until  he  had  undergone  many  trials. 
He  had  to  pass  through  fire  and  water,  to  brave  the 
opposing  sword,  to  undergo  the  most  austere  fasts, 
the  most  gruesome  terrors,  without  shrinking  or 
complaining.  Should  his  courage  fail  him,  he  was 
deemed  unworthy  and  cast  out  as  profane.  The 
initiated  were  instructed  in  the  doctrines  of  Pythagoras 
and  Plato,  so  as  to  be  fitted  for  the  enjoyment  of 
intellectual  happiness  in  a  future  state.  It  is  said 
that  a  devotee  had  to  pass  through  eighty  different 
sorts  of  trials,  and  if  he  bore  them  unflinchingly 
and  played  the  man  he  was  thenceforth  designated  a 
liege  soldier  of  Mithras,  and  one  of  the  Twice  Born. 
Human  sacrifice  and  other  horrors  are  declared  to 
have  been  parts  of  it ;  but  it  was  a  religion  full  of 
mysticism  and  symbolism.  An  image  of  Mithras, 
found  on  the  Wall,  is  surrounded  by  the  signs  of  the 


THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER    27 

Zodiac,  and  in  the  purple  dawn  the  prayers  of  the 
faithful  ascended  to  the  Eastern  god  from  the  chilly 
northern  land. 

Images  we  find  everywhere  in  that  scarcely  explored 
relic  of  a  dead  empire.  The  shepherd,  the  peasant, 
still  constantly  finds  sculptured  centurial  stones, 
rude  carvings  of  the  boar  of  the  Twentieth  Legion, 
the  sea-goat  or  the  Pegasus  of  the  Second;  coins, 
bronze  bracelets,  gold  beads  and  other  jewels,  weapons 
and  other  things  that  make  the  heart  of  the  antiquary 
sing  for  joy.  One  poor  man  at  Bremenium  (now 
Rowchester)  in  digging  his  garden  is  said  to  have 
found  treasure  enough  to  keep  him  out  of  want  for 
the  rest  of  his  days. 

Even  now,  in  the  ruins  of  the  stations,  we  can 
see  the  marks  of  the  war  chariots  and  heavy  wains 
of  merchandise  deep  worn  into  the  stone  ;  even  now 
can  see  where  the  soldier  from  Spain  or  Batavia 
sharpened  his  blade  as  he  gossiped  at  the  gate,  and 
can  picture  the  Barbarian  in  the  guise  of  a  legionary 
of  the  great  Roman  Empire  sitting  in  the  guard-house, 
tearing  with  his  teeth  the  savoury  piece  of  roast 
deer  or  of  wild  boar,  the  bones  of  which  still  thickly 
litter  the  floors  of  the  guard-chambers.  Still,  near 
the  Wall,  and  almost  wherever  Rome  laid  her  civilising 
hand,  we  can  trace  the  terraces  on  the  hillsides,  where 
they  cultivated  their  crops  in  the  same  way  that  we 
now  see  vines  grown  on  Italian  soil. 


28  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Amongst  the  ruins  at  Cilurnum,  too,  we  still  come 
across  wild  flowers  that  must  in  those  long  dead 
days  have  been  brought  by  an  exile  from  across  the 
seas.  There  is  a  saxifrage,  the  Erinus  Alpinus 
(a  Swiss  plant),  and  the  little  Corydalis  lutea,  whose 
home  is  in  the  Roman  Campagna. 

'  A  Roman  flower  in  English  fields — 
As  bright  as  long  ago.' 

The  stations  of  the  Wall  have  been  used  as  a  quarry 
by  the  dwellers  in  the  neighbourhood  for  century 
after  century,  and  each  year  the  excavated  buildings 
grow  more  like  ruins.  In  1830,  says  Hodgson,  whose 
work  on  Northumberland  and  on  the  antiquities  of 
the  Wall  is  monumental,  the  walls  of  one  of  the  rooms 
of  a  building  at  Caervorran,  then  excavated,  '  were 
so  strongly  and  beautifully  painted  that  their  colours 
glittered  in  the  sun  like  stained  glass.'  Their  colours 
have  faded  now.  The  stones  on  which  emperors  have 
trod  are  made  into  drystone  dykes ;  numerous 
memorial  stones  and  altars  are  built  into  common 
steps  or  farmhouses ;  stone  coffins  that  contained 
the  ashes  and  jewels  of  Roman  patricians  are  used 
as  pig  troughs.  Sic  transit. 

If  one  wishes  to  have  the  story  of  the  last  years 
of  the  Wall  made  living  and  real,  it  is  to  fiction 
that  we  must  go.  Mr.  Kipling  has  given  us,  in  the 
story  of  Parnesius,  centurion  of  the  Thirtieth  Legion, 


THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER    29 

a  noble  picture  of  two  liege  soldiers  of  Mithras,  their 
god,  and  Maximus,  their  emperor,  and  of  how  they 
tholed  and  overcame. 

Those  last  years  in  Britain  were  gloomy  ones  for 
the  friends  of  Rome.  Across  the  sea  there  were 
Goths  and  Vandals  to  be  dealt  with,  and  one 
Roman,  greedy  for  imperial  power,  fought  against 
another.  One  tried  legion  after  another  was  drafted 
away  from  Britain  to  fight  in  Gaul.  The  Wall  was 
no  longer  buttressed  by  seasoned  soldiers. 

As  Rome's  power  in  Britain  weakened,  the  foes 
of  Rome  grew  more  daring.  Not  only  now  were 
the  Picts  constantly  watching  to  find  a  weak  spot 
in  the  Roman  barrier,  and  ready  to  storm  and 
take  it  at  any  cost,  but  with  them  were  leagued 
the  Attacotti  from  the  far  north,  who  were  credited 
by  the  Romans  with  being  cannibals,  and  tribes  of 
fierce  warriors  called  Scots,  who  had  sailed  from 
Ireland  and  landed  on  the  western  coast.  Now,  too, 
grew  bolder  an  enemy  who  from  time  to  time  had 
swooped  like  predatory  sea-bird  across  the  grey 
North  Sea.  Sometimes  they  lost,  sometimes  they 
won,  but  always  they  fought  fiercely  and  vindictively, 
and  now  Saxon  and  Frank,  the  '  Winged  Hats,'  the 
grey  sea- wolves,  '  the  heathen  of  the  Northern  Sea,' 
had  come  to  stay. 

To  the  rescue  came  Theodosius,  and,  for  a  little 
time,  he  managed  to  make  a  stand  against  them. 


30  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Triumphantly  he  re-named  the  lands  between  the 
two  walls  4  Valentia,'  a  new  province  for  the  Emperor 
Valens.  Many  of  the  Attacotti  he  enlisted  as  soldiers 
of  the  Empire  and  drafted  to  Gaul.  Obviously  the 
reputed  flesh-eaters  were  not  particular  as  to  what 
banner  they  fought  under,  so  long  as  they  got  their 
'  fill  o'  fechtinV 

Maximus,  the  Iberian,  who  had  fought  under 
Theodosius  in  Britain,  fought  battles  against  Picts 
and  Scots  and  won  them,  before  he  drained,  and 
drained,  and  drained  again,  Britain  and  the  Wall 
of  the  best  of  their  fighting  blood.  Again  and  again 
the  Wall  was  broken  through ;  again  and  again  the 
soldiers  of  the  Empire  filled  up  the  breaches  as  best 
they  could ;  strove,  as  best  they  could,  to  drive  back 
the  foe  by  which  they  were  so  hopelessly  out- 
numbered. 

From  the  west  came  Scots,  from  the  north  came 
the  Picts.  The  4  Winged  Hats '  far  surpassed  in 
numbers  the  brass-helmeted  soldiers  of  Rome.  The 
Romano-Britons  wrote  a  piteous  appeal  addressed 
'Aetio  ter  Consuli,'  imploring  assistance  against 
the  Barbari.  '  The  Barbari,'  they  say,  '  drive  us  to 
the  sea,  while  the  sea  throws  us  back  on  the 
Barbari ;  thus  two  modes  of  death  await  us — we  are 
either  slain  or  drowned.5 

But  they  '  asked  grace  of  a  graceless  face.'  From 
Honorius  there  came  a  letter  informing  them  that 


THE  ROMANS  ON  THE  BORDER    31 

they  must  protect  themselves.  Britain  was  aban- 
doned. In  410  the  Roman  Eagles  left  the  Border, 
to  be  seen  there  no  more. 

The  Romano-Britons  on  the  Wall  still  made  a 
desperate  stand.  '  A  timorous  guard,'  says  the  his- 
torian, *  was  placed  upon  the  Wall,  where  they  pined 
away,  day  and  night,  in  the  utmost  fear.  On  the 
other  side,  the  enemy  attacked  with  hooked  weapons, 
by  which  the  cowardly  defendants  were  dragged  from 
the  Wall,  and  dashed  against  the  ground.' 

When  the  end  came  we  do  not  know. 

Was  it  one  night  when  snow  fell  on  moor  and  on  fen, 
muffling  every  footfall,  deadening  every  sound  that 
reached  the  watchers  on  the  Wall  ? — a  night  when 
the  wind  blew  shrewd  and  chill  from  the  grey  Northern 
Sea,  and  moaned  and  wuthered  through  the  hills, 
rocking  the  guard-houses  where  the  scared  sentries 
sat  and  waited  ?  Or  was  it  on  one  of  the  short 
summer  nights,  when  daylight  scarcely  dies,  but 
only  sleeps;  when  the  white  moon  still  hung  over 
the  western  hills,  while  the  sun  crept  up  behind 
the  jagged  blue  line  that  hid  from  the  eyes  of  the 
watchers  the  sea  beyond  ?  Would  that  one  might 
know  exactly  when  and  how  it  was  that  the  peoples 
of  the  northern  land,  the  only  nation  that  Rome 
could  never  tame,  no  longer  beat  themselves  against 
the  Wall  in  vain,  but  rushed  through  it  with  the 
force  of  a  winter  storm. 


82  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Through  it  they  came,  and  destruction  to  the 
mighty  work  of  a  mighty  Empire  they  dealt  un- 
sparingly. Through  it,  with  shout  of  triumph, 
came  Pict  and  Scot  and  Saxon,  and  death  was 
meted  out  without  mercy  to  the  few  that  kept  the 
Wall.  Rome  was  vanquished.  The  Barbari  had 
triumphed. 

And  now  the  winds  sweep  across  the  ruined  theatre 
where,  for  a  good  three  hundred  years,  men  hoped 
and  feared,  and  fought  and  died ;  and  only  the 
cries  of  wild  birds  break  the  solitude. 


THE  COMING  OF  ARTHUR  33 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    COMING   OF   ARTHUR 

For  many  a  petty  king  ere  Arthur  came 
Ruled  in  this  isle,  and  ever  waging  war 
Each  upon  other,  wasted  all  the  land  ; 
And  still  from  time  to  time  the  heathen  host 
Swarm'd  overseas,  and  harried  what  was  left. 
And  so  there  grew  great  tracts  of  wilderness, 
Wherein  the  beast  was  ever  more  and  more, 
But  man  was  less  and  less,  till  Arthur  came. 

TENNYSON. 

WITH  the  departure  of  the  Eagles,  the  history  of  the 
Border  becomes,  for  the  accurate  historian,  irritatingly 
impossible.  He  can  only  guess  at  things,  and  vainly 
strain  his  eyes  through  a  mist  of  uncertainties,  unable 
to  discern  with  any  approach  to  exactitude  the 
identity  of  the  dim  figures  that  march  in  procession 
through  the  grey  fog  of  tradition. 

For  the  child,  who  has  no  use  for  dates  nor  for 
solid  facts,  it  is  quite  otherwise.  Those  unchronicled 
years,  when  there  seems  to  be  no  stern  boundary 
set  between  the  land  of  Long  Ago  and  the  kingdom 
of  Might-have-Been — the  fairy  realm — have  a  charm 
that  is  all  their  own. 


34 

And  is  it  not  possible  that  the  child  mind,  the  mind 
of  Romance,  which  can 

'  Touch  with  its  finger-tips 
The  ivory  gates  and  golden,' 

may  also  be  not  so  very  far  away  from  the  true 
history  of  those  misty  years  ? 

The  Romans  went,  and  left  behind  them,  to  stand 
or  to  fall,  a  population  of  Romanised  Celts,  and  of 
those  auxiliaries  from  England  and  from  Gaul  who 
chose  to  remain  behind. 

They  may  not  have  been  c  Romans,'  properly 
speaking  ;  natives  they,  maybe,  of  Iberia,  of  Switzer- 
land, of  the  Low  Countries,  of  the  Rhineland,  or  of 
Gaul.  Yet  they  had  known  the  greatness  of  Rome. 
They  had  fought  under  the  Eagles.  The  best  that 
was  to  be  known  in  those  days  of  Roman  culture 
and  of  Celtic  art  was  known  to  them.  And  now 
they  and  their  sons  —  born,  maybe,  of  some  British 
mother,  grey-eyed  and  amber-haired — had  to  face 
the  assaults  of  foes  that  were  bitter  against  them. 
Bitter  against  them,  because  in  their  existence  they 
kept  alive  that  power  of  Rome,  that  great  conquering 
force  of  civilisation  that  Pict  and  Scot  and  Angle 
together  had  triumphantly  overthrown,  as  they 
thought,  when  the  vast  stone  blocks  that  made  the 
Wall  toppled  to  the  ground  in  hopeless  ruin  before 
their  furious  onslaught. 

In  crannogs  in  the  marshes,  in  caves  in  the  scaurs 


THE  COMING  OF  ARTHUR  35 

of  the  Lowland  rivers  and  by  the  seashore,  and  in 
rude  stone  forts,  the  Romano-Britons  had  to  take  their 
stand.  Of  the  crannogs,  built  on  piles  of  timber  or 
of  stone,  driven  deep  into  lakes,  lochans,  and  mosses, 
we  have  already  spoken.  That  these  were  the 
shelter  of  the  Romano-Britons  when  Rome  had  '  cut 
the  painter,'  is  indisputably  proved  by  the  things 
found  in  them.  Fragments  of  red  Samian  ware,  of 
native  Celtic  pottery,  bronze  weapons  and  house- 
hold dishes,  and  occasionally  ornaments  distinctly 
Roman,  tell  us  something  of  this  unwritten  piece  of 
history. 

From  the  Romans  they  had  learned  the  value  of  hill 
forts  and  of  military  ways,  and  probably  the  forts 
of  Selkirk,  Gala  Water,  Roxburghshire,  and  of  the 
southern  slopes  of  the  Lammermuirs  date  from  the 
days  of  the  struggle  between  those  who  had  come 
in  contact  with  Rome  as  her  soldiers,  and  those  who 
knew  her  only  as  their  enemy.  On  the  eastern  Eil- 
don  Hill,  on  Duns  Law,  on  Ruberslaw,  on  the  Black 
Hill  above  Earlston,  on  the  cliffs  at  St.  Abbs  —  high 
above  the  churning,  angry  breakers — on  many  a  '  law ' 
and  height  from  whence  the  keen  eyes  of  warriors 
could  sweep  sea  and  plain  for  the  advance  of  their 
foes,  one  finds  forts  that  provide  an  unending  subject 
of  controversy  for  the  earnest  antiquarian.  They 
are  all  of  the  same  construction :  hundreds  of  huts 
of  some  easily  perishable  material,  whose  very  ruins 


36  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

have  vanished,  being  defended  by  palisaded  terraces, 
still  traceable. 

Another  fertile  source  of  dispute,  presumable  of 
similar  date  and  origin,  is  the  Catrail,  that  mysterious 
fosse  or  ditch,  with  mounds  of  earth,  grass-grown, 
on  either  side.  For  forty- eight  miles  it  winds  through 
the  Border  counties,  till  it  is  lost  in  the  Cheviots, 
at  Peel  Fell,  on  the  edge  of  Northumberland.  It  must 
have  been  used  as  a  drove  road  by  many  a  Border 
reiver  in  later  days,  but  whether  it  was  originally 
built  as  a  rampart,  as  a  military  way  leading  from 
fort  to  fort,  or  as  a  hidden  road,  protected  by  earth- 
works, where  the  Britons  and  their  herds  could  trek 
from  one  place  to  another,  who  can  say  ?  Over  the 
Catrail  Sir  Walter  Scott  once  leaped  a  tired  horse, 
and  thereby  nearly  lost  his  life.  '  He  was  severely 
bruised  and  shattered ;  and  never  afterwards  recovered 
the  feeling  of  confidence  without  which  there  can  be 
no  pleasure  in  horsemanship.  He  often  talked  of 
this  accident  with  a  somewhat  superstitious  mourn- 
fulness.' 

Upon  the  colony  that  Rome  had  abandoned 
Picts,  Scots,  and  Angles  pressed  hard,  and  bravely 
indeed  did  the  Romano-Britons  struggle  to  keep  their 
footing. 

They  found  a  leader  in  Ambrosius  Aurelianus — 
4  Brython  of  the  nobility  of  Rome,'  to  quote  Taliessen 
— who  claimed  descent  from  the  last  Roman  Emperor 


THE  COMING  OF  ARTHUR  37 

of  Britain,  and  under  him  and  his  successors  many 
a  bloody  fight  was  fought  in  the  Debateable  Land. 
In  the  valley  of  Yarrow,  where  the  '  wan  water ' 
runs  between  round-shouldered  green  hills  and  lonely 
tracts  of  bracken  and  heather,  there  still  remains  a 
chronicle  in  stone  of  one  of  those  long-past  battles. 

Annan  Street  ('  The  Causeway  of  the  Mighty  Heroes,' 
in  the  Cymric  tongue),  or  Warriors'  Rest,  was  up 
till  a  century  ago  a  desolate  moor,  dotted  by  about 
twenty  large  cairns,  supposed  to  be  the  tombs  of 
Romano-Britons  who  fell  in  a  mighty  fight. 

Agricultural  civilisation  has  changed  the  character 
of  the  moorland.  The  cairns  are  gone,  and  gone, 
too,  is  the  marshy  lake  wrherein  the  bodies  of  many 
who  fell  on  that  bloody  day  are  supposed  to  have 
been  thrown.  But  a  great  stone  still  marks  the 
place  where  on  the  moor  the  leaders  of  the  battle 
fell  and  now  lie  at  rest. 

HIC  MEMOR  IACETI 
LOIN  :  :  :  NI  :  :  :  :  : 

PRINC 

PE  :  :  NVDI  (LIBER ALT) 

DVMNOGENI  •  I1IC  IACENT 

IN  TVMVLO  DVO  FILII 

LIBERALI 

So  goes  the  inscription  upon  it.  c  Here  is  the 
monument  of  Cetilous  and  Nennus,  sons  of  Nudd, 
Dumnonian  prince  and  emperor.  Here  lie  buried 
the  two  sons  of  Liberalis.' 


38  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

In  the  neighbouring  ground  stone  coffins  have 
been  discovered,  but  their  contents  of  calcined  bones, 
bronze  axes,  arrow-heads,  and  even  a  broad  ring  of 
jet  or  cannel  coal  have  been  scattered  hither  and 
thither  amongst  the  finders  and  their  friends. 

The  shepherds  who  tend  their  hardy  flocks  on  the 
lonely  hills  of  Ettrick  and  Yarrow  have  not  yet 
learned  reverence  for  such  relics  of  a  bygone  age, 
and  many  treasures  have  perished  under  their  vanda- 
listic  hands.  And  yet  it  may  be  that  these  very 
peasants,  long-limbed,  dark-eyed,  dignified  of  bearing, 
and  sparing  of  speech,  are  descendants  of  men  who 
bore  the  purple  when  the  Roman  Empire  ruled  the 
world. 

Guledig,  the  equivalent  for  the  Roman  Imperator 
or  Aurelianus  (from  Gulad,  country),  was  the  title 
by  which  the  Romano-Britons  hailed  their  ruler. 

And  a  mighty  Imperator  was  the  Guledig  Arthur, 
who  has  come  down  to  us  through  the  years,  bathed 
in  the  misty  golden  light  of  Romance,  wearing  a 
crown  of  more  or  less  mythical  perfections  ;  worthy 
hero  for  a  poet  of  poets. 

The  close  of  the  fifth  century  dates  his  coming ; 
a  warrior,  some  say,  of  the  blood  royal,  while  others 
maintain  that  he  owed  nothing  to  his  birth,  but 
carved  his  way  upwards  by  his  own  fearless  arm 
and  mighty  sword. 

To  the  rescue  of  British  and  Romano-British,  who 


THE  COMING  OF  ARTHUR  39 

were  in  sore  straits,  Arthur  came  to  the  Border, 
fought  with  and  defeated,  in  a  succession  of  twelve 
battles,  Scots  and  Picts,  Angles  and  Saxons. 

In  Ayrshire  he  fought  first,  at  a  river  mouth,  of 
the  identity  of  which  we  cannot  be  certain.  Once 
he  fought  in  Lanarkshire,  four  times  at  Loch  Lomond, 
once  at  Carron  in  Stirlingshire,  and  then  marched 
southwards,  avoiding  the  almost  impregnable  Pictish 
stronghold  of  Edinburgh,  to  fight  again  in  '  the 
Wood  of  Caledon.' 

A  thousand  years  later,  when  the  retinue  of  James  iv. 
came  to  that  '  derke  forest,'  they  '  thought  it  awe- 
some for  to  see.'  A  few  old  trees,  gnarled  and 
deformed  by  age  and  the  storms  of  centuries,  dotted 
here  and  there  in  Ettrick  and  Yarrow,  in  the  old 
Deer  Park  of  Holydene  near  St.  Boswells,  and  in 
one  or  two  other  places  on  the  Border,  yet  stand, 
like  grey  ghosts  of  the  great  trees  of  the  Forest  of 
Ettrick,  still  enduring  the  hurricanes  of  autumn 
and  the  snows  of  winter.  But,  each  year,  the  ghosts 
grow  fewer,  and  soon  the  place  that  knew  the  Wood 
of  Caledon,  whose  dense  timber  stretched  from  near 
Carlisle  to  the  Pentland  Hills,  will  know  it  no  more. 

A  victory  gained  in  silva  Caledonis,  and  Arthur 
marched  onward  to  strike  a  blow  at  the  Angles 
who  occupied  a  tract  of  land  between  the  Northern 
Wall  and  the  valley  of  the  Gala.  The  old  Roman 
road,  running  from  the  Carron  in  Stirlingshire  to 


40  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Biggar  Water,  helped  him  in  his  march  towards 
the  Tweed. 

On  the  hill  at  Cademuir  (in  Cymric  Cadmore,  'the 
great  battle '),  on  Manor  Water,  the  Angles  met  him 
and  forced  him  to  give  battle.  Even  now  the  line 
of  march  is  traceable.  Near  Falkirk  we  still  have 
the  mysterious  cromlech  called  '  Arthur's  O'on,' 
and  two  miles  below  the  place  where  tradition  has 
placed  the  grave  of  Merlin  there  stood,  until  Sir 
Walter  Scott's  father,  a  too  zealous  factor,  had  it 
pulled  down  for  building  purposes,  yet  another 
4  Arthur's  Oven.5  It  was  an  almost  perfect  cromlech, 
two  large  upright  stones  being  crowned  by  a  third 
huge  one,  and  above  it,  on  the  green  hill  of  the  Lour, 
the  ruins  of  a  prehistoric  fortress  of  great  size  showed 
where  Arthur  may  have  encamped  the  night  before 
the  battle. 

A  short  day's  march  from  Cademuir,  probably 
across  the  Caersman,  up  Glentress,  and  by  the  Deuchar 
Water,  past  what  is  now  known  as  the  Piper's  Grave, 
brought  King  Arthur  to  his  eighth  battle.  Between 
the  waters  of  the  Heriot  and  the  Lugate  the  victory 
was  won.  It  was  a  fight  between  Pagan  Saxon  and 
Romano-Briton,  who  had  grafted  Christianity  on  to 
the  pagan  faith  of  Roman  culture,  the  mystical 
faith  of  British  Nature  worship,  and  magnificently 
were  the  heathen  routed.  Into  battle,  so  says  the 
historian  Nennius,  '  Arthur  bore  upon  his  shoulders  ' 


THE  COMING  OF  ARTHUR  41 

(?  his  shield)  4  the  image  of  Saint  Mary,  perpetual 
Virgin,  and  the  Pagans  were  put  to  flight  on  that  day, 
and  there  was  a  great  slaughter  of  them  through 
the  power  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  of  Saint 
Mary,  His  Virgin  Mother.'  Others  tell  us  that  he 
bore  not  only  on  his  shield  the  picture  of  the  Madonna, 
but  carried  a  cross  he  had  brought  from  Jerusalem. 

Till  darkness  fell,  we  are  told,  the  pursuit  and  the 
slaughter  went  on,  and  from  thenceforth,  to  Saxon 
and  to  Angle,  that  vale  of  Gala  Water  was  known 
as  a  Vallis  Doloris, — Wedale,  the  dale  of  Woe. 

For  it  is  not  when  life  is  light-hearted  that  it 
leaves  its  mark.  It  is  the  dark  things,  the  tragedies 
of  life  that  are  remembered — where  those  foemen 
fought  —  where  that  man's  blood  stained  the 
heather. 

In  later  days,  so  we  are  told,  at  the  Church  of 
St.  Mary  of  '  the  Stow  in  Wedale,'  there  were  still 
'  preserved  in  great  veneration '  the  fragments  of 
that  miraculous  image  of  the  Holy  Virgin  which 
was  held  to  have  wrought  death  and  disaster  upon 
the  heathen  host.  Dumbarton,  Stirling,  and  Edin- 
burgh afterwards  fell  before  King  Arthur,  and  through 
him  peace  at  length  came  upon  the  land,  for  all  the 
wild  races  feared  the  power  of  his  arm. 

For  twenty  years  and  more  the  peace  continued, 
and  then  treachery  from  within  brought  the  end. 
His  nephew  Modred,  lustful  for  power,  rose  in 


42  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

insurrection.  The  districts  that  Arthur  had  wrested 
from  the  Saxons  he  had  given  to  three  brothers, 
Urien,  Arawn,  and  Llew.  To  Llew  was  given  Lodoneis, 
the  Lothians  of  that  day,  and  Modred  his  son  leagued 
himself  with  Arthur's  false  queen,  the  Guinevere 
of  Tennyson — the  c  Ganore,'  c  Vanora,'  or  '  Wander,' 
of  Scottish  tradition — and  with  Saxon,  Angle,  Pict, 
and  traitor  Briton.  Either  at  Camelon  near  Falkirk, 
the  unbeautiful  factory  town  whose  only  claim  to 
poetry  now  lies  in  its  name,  or  by  the  '  Western  Sea  ' — 
near  the  Solway,  it  may  be — King  Arthur  suffered 
dire  defeat  and  was  slain  in  battle. 

'  Thus  they  faughte  alle  the  longe  day  and  neuver 
stynted  tyl  the  noble  knyghtes  were  layed  to  the  colde 
erthe,'  writes  Sir  Thoma  Malory,  *&  euver  they 
faught  styll  tyl  it  was  nere  night  &  by  that  tyme 
was  there  an  hondred  thousand  layed  deed  vpon  the 
down.' 

As  the  historical  facts  of  his  life  grew  more  remote, 
romance  and  myth  took  hands  and  together  wove 
for  posterity  tales  of  the  fame  of  King  Arthur,  and 
of  how  he  passed  away. 

It  was  not  possible  for  his  followers  to  think  of 
their  hero,  their  saviour,  as  dead.  No  one  knew 
where  he  was  buried. 

*  A  mystery  to  the  world,'  writes  an  old  bard, 
4  is  the  grave  of  Arthur.' 

And  Malory  writes — c  Yet  somme  men  say  in  many 


THE  COMING  OF  ARTHUR  43 

party es  of  England  that  Kyng  Arthur  is  not  deed. 
But  had  by  the  wylle  of  our  lord  Jhesu  into  another 
place,  and  men  say  that  he  shal  come  ageyn  and  he 
shal  wynne  the  holy  crorse.  I  wyl  not  say  it  shal 
be  so,  but  rather  I  wyl  say  here  in  this  world  he 
chaunged  his  lyf,  but  many  men  say  that  there  is 
wryten  vpon  his  tombe  this  vers.  Hie  iacet  Arthurus 
Rex,  quondam  Rex  que  futurus.' 

In  later  years,  what  says  one  who  might  fitly  have 
descended  from  Galahad  of  the  Table  Round  ? — 

' "  But  now  farewell "  he  said, 
"  I  am  going  a  long  way 
With  these  thou  see'st — if  indeed  I  go — 
(For  all  my  mind  is  clouded  with  a  doubt) 
To  the  island-valley  of  Avilion  ; 
Where  falls  not  hail,  or  rain,  or  any  snow, 
Nor  ever  wind  blows  loudly  ;  but  it  lies 
Deep-meadow'd,  happy  fair  with  orchard-lawns 
And  bowery  hollows  crown'd  with  summer  sea, 
Where  I  will  heal  me  of  my  grievous  wound."  ' 

Between  the  Lammermuirs  and  the  Cheviot  Hills 
where  the  Tweed,  like  a  silvery  snake,  winds  through 
wood  and  valley,  stand  the  three  hills  that  tradition 
has  chosen  as  monument  for  a  hero  who  can  claim 
rank  with  the  immortals. 

Underneath  the  Eildons,  the  Trimontium  of  the 
Romans,  they  say  that  King  Arthur  lies  asleep. 
Around  him  sleep  his  knights  of  the  Round  Table, 
their  armour  on,  their  horses  ready  harnessed, 
slumbering  in  their  stalls.  By  them  hangs  a  bugle, 


44  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

and  should  there  ever  come  a  day  of  direst  need  to 
the  descendants  of  the  Romano-Britons,  the  Scottish 
Borderers,  and  should  there  then  be  found  a  man 
who  is  stout  enough  of  heart  to  blow  on  that  horn  a 
mighty  blast,  King  Arthur  and  his  knights  will  awake 
and  once  more  draw  their  swords  for  their  country's 
sake.  But  the  man  who  blows  the  peal  must  do  so 
*  with  summons  strong  and  high ' ;  must 

'  Bid  the  charmed  sleep  of  ages  fly ; 
Roll  the  long  sound  through  Eildon's  caverns  vast, 
While  each  dark  warrior  kindles  at  the  blast ; 
The  horn,  the  falchion  grasp  with  mighty  hand, 
And  peal  proud  Arthur's  march  from  Fairyland.' 

Throughout  the  years  when  Arthur  was  fighting 
and  winning  battles,  the  Frisians  and  Angles  and 
Saxons,  so  the  old  historian  tells  us,  were  constantly 
seeking  help  from  their  Fatherland.  The  castle  at 
Berwick-on-Tweed — '  Joyous  Garde  '  after  Lancelot's 
day,  '  Dolorous  Garde '  before  he  won  it  —  must 
have  suffered  constant  change  of  hands  even  in  those 
early  times.  For  constantly  these  hordes  from 
Germania  were  reinforced  by  large-limbed,  yellow- 
haired  sea-rovers  like  themselves,  who  came  to 
settle  in  the  lands  whose  inhabitants  they  ravished 
and  murdered  by  way  of  introduction.  Constantly 
were  they  reinforced  by  ready-made  kings  and  knights. 
The  bulk  of  the  rulers  in  those  early  days  might  have 
been  labelled  '  Made  in  Germany.'  Kings  sailed 


THE  COMING  OF  ARTHUR  45 

across  the  stormy  North  Sea  and  ruled  the  wayward 
hordes,  until,  in  547,  the  scattered  tribes  of  Angles 
and  Frisians  were  gathered  into  the  realm  of  Ber- 
nicia.  Durham,  Northumberland,  part  of  Roxburgh, 
Berwick,  East  Lothian,  and  part  of  Midlothian 
were  included  in  the  kingdom  over  which  reigned 
a  mighty  king,  Ida  by  name,  who  boasted  of  having 
a  direct  descent  from  Woden,  the  god  of  war. 

At  Bamborough  we  can  still  see  where  he  placed 
his  stronghold. 

The  sand  lies,  on  sunny  days,  in  a  long  yellow  line 
along  the  shore,  with  gentle  wavelets  creaming, 
frothy  white,  on  the  edge  of  a  limpid  blue  sea.  Above 
the  beach  are  sandhills  and  benty  blue  grass,  and  on 
the  turfy  knolls  above  are  pungent-scented  tansy, 
with  here  and  there  a  sea-pink,  a  harebell,  or  an  appeal- 
ing little  heartsease  of  violet  and  yellow.  And  behind 
sea  and  sand  and  grassy  dunes  and  flowery  turf 
stands  the  Castle  of  Bamborough,  erect,  dignified, 
splendid,  on  the  sudden  cliff,  from  which,  looking 
eastward,  we  see  only  water  and  waves,  waves  and 
water,  as  far  as  eye  can  reach,  and  from  which  we 
can  survey  each  undulation  of  the  purple  plain 
that  lies  stretched  before  us  for  many  and  many  a 
mile  to  the  south. 

When  gales  buffet  the  wintry  sea,  when  the  keen 
nor'-easter  howls  round  the  Castle  walls,  when  the 
tatters  of  surf  scud  across  the  sea-bitten  grass  like 


46  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

little  white  birds  in  a  storm,  the  Castle  of  Bamborough 
is  almost  at  its  best.  Beyond  it  lie  the  jagged 
islands  where  many  a  ship  has  perished.  On  the 
rocks  beneath  it  the  hungry  waves  lash  and  break 
themselves  in  tumultuous  fragments.  With  no 
sheltering  tree,  no  protecting  cliff,  it  stands  arro- 
gantly erect  to  face  the  tempest.  And  underneath 
its  rock,  nestling  at  its  feet,  lie  the  little  cottages 
whose  lamps  burn  bright  at  night,  and  whose  owners 
in  past  days  have  many  and  many  a  time  sought 
sanctuary  of  their  overlord,  on  the  cliff  high  above 
them. 

There,  first  within  a  hedge,  and  afterwards  pro- 
tected by  a  wall,  Ida  planted  his  standard.  And  to 
this  day  there  is  no  part  of  the  land  more  truly  English, 
no  county  where  the  tongue  of  the  Angles  survives 
in  its  purity  quite  as  well  as  it  does  in  that  grand 
county  of  Northumberland,  whose  eastern  border 
wages  unceasing  war  with  the  greedy  billows  of  the 
fierce  North  Sea. 

Dinguardi  or  Dinguoaroy  was  the  British  name 
for  Bamborough.  Bebba,  Queen  of  Aethelfrid,  Ida's 
grandson,  gave  its  later  title  of  Bebbanburh. 

For  twelve  years  Ida  reigned.  He  was  succeeded 
by  Ella,  who  was  of  a  different  family,  and  who 
added  to  Bernicia  the  districts  between  the  Ilumber 
and  the  Tees,  termed  Deira,  thus  forming  one  kingdom 
of  Northumbria.  The  province  of  Bernicia,  however, 


THE  COMING  OF  ARTHUR  47 

remained  under  the  rule  of  Ida's  sons,  of  whom 
twelve  survived  him,  and  six  of  whom  reigned  in 
succession  in  the  royal  city  by  the  sea. 

Theodoric,  the  4  Flame-Bearer '  of  the  bards, 
was  a  worthy  son  of  Ida,  and  against  him  fought 
stoutly  a  new  champion  for  the  Britons,  who  had 
arisen  when  Arthur  had  gone  to  sleep  a  deep  sleep 
under  the  Eildon  Hills,  with  the  silver  Tweed  murmur- 
ing in  his  drowsy  ears  a  monotonous  lullaby. 

Urbgen,  the  City-Born,  the  Urien  of  the  bards, 
gave  themes  for  many  a  song  to  the  Cymric  poets : — 

'  If  there  is  a  cry  on  the  hill, 
Is  it  not  Urien  that  terrifies  ? 
If  there  is  a  cry  in  the  valley, 
Is  it  not  Urien  that  pierces  ? 
If  there  is  a  cry  in  the  mountain, 
Is  it  not  Urien  that  conquers  ? 
If  there  is  a  cry  in  the  slope, 
Is  it  not  Urien  that  wounds  ? ' 

Of  noble  victories  over  the  Flame-Bearer  also  sang 
the  bards  : — 

'  There  was  many  a  corpse. 
The  ravens  were  red  from  the  warring  of  men, 
And  the  common  people  hurried  with  the  tidings.' 

Of  a  triumphant  raid,  apparently,  Taliessen  speaks 
when  he  says  : — 

'  A  rumour  has  come  to  me  from  Calchvynd  (Kelso), 
A  disgrace  in  the  south  country,  a  praiseworthy  pillage.' 

Loathsome  to  Briton  and  to  Romano-Briton  were 
those  fierce  fighters  from  Jutland  and  Friesland  and 


48  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

from  the  Rhine.  Not  only  their  own  lives  and  those 
of  their  wives  and  children  were  threatened,  but 
their  homes,  their  religion,  and  the  right  of  inheritance 
to  that  part  of  the  northern  land  that  they  had  now 
come  to  claim  as  their  own. 

'The  North  has  been  poisoned  by  rovers 
Of  a  livid,  hateful  line  and  form/ 

writes  a  Celtic  bard,  probably  brown-haired,  and 
with  dark  eyes,  mystery-loving,  full  of  poetry.  Those 
big-limbed,  blue- eyed  blondes  who  fought  and  drank 
and  slept  off  the  effect  of  their  potions,  who  paid 
no  heed  to  aught  on  earth  save  the  living,  actual 
facts  before  them  of  meat  and  drink  and  lust  and 
war,  have  left  an  indelible  mark  on  the  British  nation 
of  to-day.  For  much  we  owe  them  our  thanks,  but 
thanks,  too,  we  owe  to  the  people  who  fell  before 
them,  those  with  whom  matter  was  ruled  by  mind, 
and  to  whom  prose  ranked  less  high  than  poetry. 

Saxons  slaughtered  Britons,  and  went  home  to 
eat  and  drink  and  sleep  and  fight  again.  Britons 
defeated  Saxons,  and  sang  of 

'  A  Saxon,  shivering,  trembling, 
With  hair  white-washed  .  .  . 
With  bloody  face  .  .  . 
...  A  bier  his  destiny.' 

The  old  tales  of  descent  from  the  men  of  Troy  are  not 
so  very  hard  to  believe  when  we  read  songs  that  have 
so  strong  a  kinship  with  those  that  tell  us  how  Hector 


THE  COMING  OF  ARTHUR  49 

fought  and  died,  and  of  the  slaying  of  the  wooers 
by  Odysseus. 

For  something  like  four  hundred  years  the  struggle 
between  Briton  and  Saxon  went  on,  but  disunion 
among  the  Britons  led  to  the  end.  As  the  years 
passed,  the  Britons  divided  into  two  parties :  the 
Christian  party,  to  whom  most  of  the  Romano-Britons 
belonged,  and  the  Pagans,  those  who  had  apostatised 
from  the  teaching  of  the  early  saints  and  reverted 
to  Druidical  and  Roman  Paganism,  or  who  had  taken 
to  themselves  the  strange  gods  of  the  Norse  invaders 
and  those  who  had  never  known  Christianity. 

In  573,  near  the  junction  of  the  Border  Esk  and 
the  Liddel,  close  to  the  magnificent  hill  fort  known 
as  the  Moat  of  Liddel,  Christian  and  Pagan  met  in 
terrible  conflict.  The  Pass  of  Ardderyd,  leading  from 
the  Wall  into  Scotland,  was  the  scene  of  a  triumphant 
victory  over  the  so-called  4  heathen,'  and  long  did 
the  bards  mourn  over  the  heroes  who  fell  on  that  day. 

'  Seven  thrusting  spears,  seven  riversful 
Of  the  blood  of  chieftains  will  they  fill. 
Seven-score  generous  ones  have  gone  to  the  shades — 
In  the  wood  of  Calydon  they  came  to  their  end.' 

Thirty  years  later  the  Pagans  had  their  revenge. 
Aidan  the  Scot,  consecrated  first  independent  King 
of  Dalriada — the  south-west  Borderland — at  lona 
by  Saint  Columba,  was  now  leader  of  the  Christian 
party.  Many  a  mighty  fight  against  Picts  and 


50  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Saxons  had  Aidan  won  ere  he  led  the  Christian  host 
into  battle  against  the  Pagan  Scots  and  Britons 
who  had  leagued  together  against  him.  In  596  he 
was  victor  in  the  great  battle  of  Chirchind  in  the 
country  lying  between  the  Stirlingshire  Carron  and 
the  Pentlands,  where  four  of  his  sons  were  slain. 
In  the  life  of  St.  Columba  we  are  told  how  to  the  people 
at  lona  in  the  western  sea  there  came  the  news  of 
this  far  fight. 

Said  the  Saint  '  to  his  minister,  Diormit,  "  Ring 
the  bell."  The  brethren,  startled  at  the  sound, 
proceeded  quickly  to  the  church,  with  the  holy 
prelate  himself  at  their  head.  There  he  began, 
on  bended  knees,  to  say  to  them,  "  Let  us  pray  now 
earnestly  to  the  Lord  for  this  people  and  King  Aidan, 
for  they  are  engaging  in  battle  at  this  moment."  Then 
after  a  short  time  he  went  out  of  the  oratory,  and 
looking  up  to  heaven,  said,  "  The  barbarians  are 
fleeing  now,  and  to  Aidan  is  given  the  victory — a  sad 
one  though  it  be."  And  the  blessed  man  in  his  prophecy 
declared  the  number  of  the  slain  in  Aidan's  army  to 
be  three  hundred  and  three  men.' 

Against  Aedelfrid  of  Bernicia,  in  603,  Aidan  ad- 
vanced with  his  army.  Through  the  lonely  passes 
of  Liddesdale  he  led  his  men ;  it  may  have  been  down 
the  Catrail,  which  crosses  the  upper  part  of  the 
Liddel  valley. 

'  They  shot  him  dead  at  the  Ninestanerig, 
Beside  the  Headless  Cross/ 


THE  COMING  OF  ARTHUR  51 

says  Surtees  in  his  forged  ballad,  and  he  has  chosen 
for  Sir  Barthram's  resting-place  the  scene  of  one  of 
the  mightiest  fights  ever  fought  between  Pagan  and 
Christian  upon  British  soil. 

At  Degastane,  now  Dawstane,  where  the  remains 
of  the  Catrail  are  still  seen,  between  Dawstaneburn 
and  Dawstanerig,  the  opposing  armies  met,  and 
that  of  Aidan  was  cut  in  pieces.  Opposite  Dawstane 
stand  the  Nine  Stones  that  give  the  '  Rig '  its  name. 
On  a  farm  some  miles  lower  down  the  valley  is  an 
enormous  cairn,  with  a  large  stone  standing  erect 
near  it,  and  at  Milnholm,  on  the  Liddel,  is  the  '  head- 
less cross.'  Traces  these,  we  are  told,  of  the  last  con- 
flict between  the  Christian  Scots  and  Romano-Britons 
and  '  the  heathen  of  the  Northern  Sea.'  And  4  on 
the  moor  and  moss,'  like  Sir  Barthram,  by  the  lonely 
burn,  lie  asleep,  till  the  battle  of  Armageddon  shall 
have  been  fought,  Christian  followers  of  Arthur 
the  King,  and  Pagan  Norsemen  who  sought  no 
better  end  than  to  pass  to  Valhalla  sword  in  hand. 


52  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    SAINTS    ON   THE   BORDER 

Ring  out  the  darkness  of  the  land, 
Ring  in  the  Christ  that  is  to  be. 

TENNYSOX. 

To  many  a  strange  sound  had  those  lonely  hills  and 
rivers  of  the  Border  listened  during  the  years  since 
the  Romans  first  came.  The  buzz  and  hum  of  life 
on  the  great  Wall  had  done  away  with  their  solitude. 
The  clash  and  clang  of  battle  had  rent  the  air.  They 
had  echoed  the  cries  of  the  human  sacrifices  that 
fell  before  the  knives  of  the  high  priest  Druids. 
They  had  heard  the  lowing  of  the  bull  that  died  in 
the  temple  of  Mithras. 

And  now  yet  another  sound,  strange  and  sweet 
and  new,  came  to  them,  for  across  the  moors  rang 
the  little  bronze  handbell  of  Christian  priests,  calling 
on  men  to  pray.  Of  many  a  new  god  had  the  Britons 
heard  from  the  Roman  conquerors.  The  god  of  whom, 
last  of  all,  they  were  taught,  was  that  One  who  in 
the  earlier  years  was  worshipped  only  in  secret. 
This  was  no  radiant  Apollo,  no  mighty  force  demand- 
ing satiation  in  the  blood  of  bulls,  in  mystic  rites, 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  53 

horrible  or  magnificent.  A  carpenter  of  Galilee, 
who  had  suffered  a  shameful  death  after  having 
given  to  men  a  religion  of  love  and  of  peace,  must 
have  seemed  to  them  strangest  of  all  strange  gods 
for  a  nation  of  soldiers  to  worship. 

When  Hadrian  built  the  Wall,  the  teaching  of  St. 
Paul  was  still  comparatively  fresh  in  the  minds  of  the 
Romans  in  whose  city  he  and  many  another  follower 
of  the  despised  Nazarene  had  suffered  martyrdom, 
and  there  were  Christians  among  the  Roman  legion- 
aries. Had  not  even  Tiberius  Caesar,  who  wore  the 
purple  when  Christ  was  crucified,  demanded  in  the 
face  of  an  opposing  senate  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
should  be  admitted  among  the  gods  of  Rome  (inter 
cetera  sacra),  because  he  was  convinced  that  the 
Messiah  of  the  Jews  was  not  man  but  God  ? 

It  was  not,  however,  until  324  A.D.  that  Christianity 
became  the  State  religion  throughout  the  Roman 
Empire,  a  religion  to  be  imposed  by  Rome  upon  all 
her  provinces,  as  a  part  of  the  national  constitution. 
It  is  a  system  that  the  nations  of  to-day  have  not 
yet  laid  aside.  Even  now  there  are  those  who  feel 
it  a  national  privilege  to  Christianise  foreign  races 
by  force  of  arms.  But,  to  be  just,  it  was  not  only  the 
irresistible  moral  persuasion  of  the  Roman  sword 
that  taught  the  Border  folk  the  doctrine  of  '  Peace  on 
earth,  goodwill  towards  men.'  WTiile  barbarians  from 
the  east  and  the  west  were  harrying  the  Romano- 


54  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

British  provinces,  a  Christian  bishop  came  from 
Rome  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  Picts  of  Galloway. 

Ninian,  a  Romano-Briton,  had  been  trained  in  Rome 
in  all  the  doctrines  of  the  Western  Church.  Along 
the  shores  of  the  Solway,  in  the  '  land  of  bog-myrtle 
and  peat,'  he  carried  on  his  missionary  work,  and  at 
Whithern,  on  the  west  side  of  Wigton  Bay,  he  built 
a  church  and  dedicated  it  to  St.  Martin  of  Tours. 
Candida  Casa,  the  Church  of  White  Stone,  was 
its  name  among  the  country  people,  to  whom  a  stone 
house  was  a  curiosity  almost  unknown.  A  few  miles 
from  Whithern — now  Whitehorn — in  a  steep  rock  by 
the  sea  is  '  St.  Ninian's  Cave.'  There,  so  legend  tells 
us,  where  only  the  dash  of  waves  could  disturb  him, 
the  saint  was  wont  to  go  for  prayer  and  contemplation. 
The  Celtic  crosses  discovered  not  long  since  on  the 
rocky  walls  would  make  it  seem  that  legend  has 
not  erred. 

Tradition  tells  us  but  little  of  this  early  saint,  who 
is  perhaps  better  known  to  Scottish  people  as  St. 
Ringan,  and  through  whose  teaching  the  Southern 
Picts  gave  up  their  idols  and  received  the  true  faith. 
It  would  seem  that  he  was  a  saint  who  cared  for 
gardens — for,  at  a  moment's  notice,  tradition  says, 
he  made  the  plot  of  ground  which  supplied  him  and 
his  brethren  with  vegetables  produce  a  handsome 
crop  of  onions.  '  A  wonderful  thing,'  says  the  chroni- 
cler, *  and  credible  only  by  such  as  believe  that 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  55 

nothing  is  impossible  to  the  faithful.'  And  among 
the  country  folk  it  is  not  for  his  good  works,  but  in 
connection  with  cottage  gardens,  that  St.  Ninian's 
name  is  perpetuated.  The  old  Scottish  woman  who 
still  treasures  as  a  part  of  her  Sabbath  observance 
the  picking  of  a  piece  of  '  Apple  ringie '  to  carry  to 
church  in  her  Bible,  is  unconsciously  commemorating 
a  saint  of  the  fourth  century.  For  4  Apel  Ringie  ' 
means,  in  Cymric,  the  herb  of  St.  Ninian's  Church ; 
while  its  other  name  of  '  Saithrinwuid  '  (i.e. 4  Suthren- 
wud ')  is  Saint  Rin's  wood — that  is  to  say,  the  wood, 
or  herb  of  St.  Ninian. 

One  wonders  whether  the  deep  ravine,  clad  with 
hazel  and  hawthorn  bushes,  down  which  a  burn 
trickles  at  Holydene,  in  Roxburghshire — once  an 
important  seat  of  the  Kers  of  Cessford — and  known 
as  Ringan's  Dene,  may  not  also  be  a  reminder  of  a 
visit  paid  by  St.  Ninian  to  the  Romano-Britons  of  the 
Border.  Hence,  perhaps,  '  Holy  Dene.'  The  various 
legends  of  St.  Paul,  St.  James,  and  St.  Peter  first 
bringing  the  Gospel  to  Britain  are  not  much  more 
improbable  than  are  the  tales  of  the  missionaries  who 
preached  the  Gospel  in  Scotland  during  the  century 
that  followed  the  founding  of  St.  Ninian's  white 
church  by  the  sea. 

Then,  in  563,  the  religious  history  of  Scotland 
ceased  to  consist  merely  of  nebulous  tradition. 

At  lona  one  is  shown  a  raised  grassy  ridge,  the 


56  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

shape  of  an  upturned  boat,  and  called  *  An  Curach,' 
the  Coracle.  Were  tradition  infallible,  An  Curach 
would  be  a  noteworthy  shrine,  for  in  the  coracle, 
in  563,  Columba  is  said  to  have  come  from  Ireland, 
and  then  to  have  buried  that  boat  above  the  beach 
that  he  might  avoid  the  temptation  of  returning. 

4  In  those  days  the  Saint,  with  twelve  disciples, 
his  fellow  soldiers,  sailed  across  to  Britain,'  writes 
his  biographer.  Not  only  missionary  and  saint  was 
Columba,  but  soldier,  statesman,  and  maker  of 
nations.  He  was  of  the  blood  of  the  royal  Scots  of 
Ireland,  eligible  for  the  sovereignty  of  his  own  country, 
and  kinsman  of  the  kings  of  Dalriada.  In  Ireland 
he  was  a  notable  man,  a  warrior,  an  experienced 
ecclesiastic  who  had  founded  many  monasteries, 
but  at  the  age  of  forty-two  he  left  the  honours  of  his 
own  land  and  sailed  across  the  sea  '  to  seek  a  foreign 
country  for  the  love  of  Christ.'  lona,  called  then 
the  island  of  Hii,  was  the  home  that  St.  Columba 
chose  for  himself  and  his  followers.  '  He  lived  a 
soldier  of  Christ  during  thirty-four  years  in  an 
island,'  writes  Adamnan,  his  contemporary  and 
biographer. 

From  that  rocky  island  in  the  Western  Sea, 
Columba's  clear  gaze  saw  the  needs  of  the  peoples 
that  time  and  a  common  enemy  had  not  yet  forged 
into  the  amalgam  that  we  now  know  as  the  Scottish 
nation.  From  them  he  took  their  Pagan  beliefs, 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  57 

giving  in  their  place  the  Gospel  of  Christ  as  he  himself 
knew  it.  The  use  of  Pagan  customs  that  were  not 
in  themselves  contrary  to  the  Christian  faith  was 
not  forbidden  by  the  Christian  Church,  and  the 
miraculous  element  of  religion,  so  indispensable  to 
those  who  had  known  the  mysteries  of  the  Druids, 
was  fostered  by  St.  Columba.  In  every  way  the 
soldier-saint  was  able  to  outdo  the  Druid  miracle- 
workers.  The  powers  of  clairvoyance  and  of  telepathy 
certainly  seem  to  have  been  his,  and  he  used  4  a  book 
of  glass  '  for  crystal-gazing. 

Having  given  to  them  the  simple  creed  in  which 
he  and  his  warrior-monks — his  milites  Christi — lived 
and  died,  St.  Columba  took  it  upon  himself  to  choose 
for  the  people  of  his  great  diocese  that  stretched  from 
lona  down  to  the  Cheviots,  the  kings  that  should 
rule  them.  On  his  advice,  his  kinsman,  Aidan,  was 
given  the  crown  of  the  Dalriadic  Scots,  and  the  sound- 
ness of  his  choice  was  proved  by  the  fact  that  on 
Aidan's  death,  after  a  reign  of  thirty-seven  years,  he 
left  Dalriada  a  compact  kingdom  instead  of  a  chaos 
of  turbulent  tribes. 

Of  St.  Columba's  greatness  of  intellect,  of  his 
magnificent  strength  and  force  of  character,  there 
can  be  no  doubt,  and  it  is  pleasant  to  read  the  old 
tales  that  show  us  that  with  it  all  he  had  the  simple, 
tender  heart  of  a  little  child. 

To  one  of  the  brethren  he  foretold  the  coming  of 


58  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

a  crane,  a  migrant  from  his  own  dear  homeland. 
Battered,  bruised,  and  driven  about  by  contrary 
winds  the  bird  would  come,  he  said,  and  lie  down 
exhausted  on  the  beach  at  the  feet  of  the  waiting 
monk.  '  Treat  the  bird  tenderly,'  said  the  saint. 
4  Take  it  to  some  neighbouring  house,  where  it  may 
be  kindly  received,  and  carefully  nursed  and  fed 
by  thee  for  three  days  and  three  nights.  When  the 
crane  is  refreshed  with  the  three  days'  rest,  and  is 
unwilling  to  abide  any  longer  with  us,  it  shall  fly 
back  with  renewed  strength  to  the  pleasant  part  of 
Scotia  [Ireland]  from  which  it  originally  hath  come. 
This  bird  do  I  consign  to  thee  with  special  care 
because  it  cometh  from  our  native  place.' 

And  so  it  fell  out,  and  the  monk  who  had  tended 
one  of  the  smallest  of  God's  creatures  for  the  love 
of  God  and  of  his  master,  received  the  blessing  of 
St.  Columba,  while,  one  calm  day,  the  crane  '  marking 
for  a  little  its  path  through  the  air  homewards, 
directed  its  course  across  the  sea  to  Hibernia,  straight 
as  it  could  fly.' 

The  story  of  the  saint's  last  days  and  of  his  death, 
as  told  by  Adamnan,  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
pieces  of  biography  in  any  language.  To  the  end 
he  cared  for  the  temporal  wants  of  the  brethren  who 
lived  in  the  wattled  huts  by  the  sea.  Too  feeble  to 
walk,  he  was  taken  in  a  cart  to  visit  some  of  those 
who  were  at  work  at  the  far  side  of  the  island.  He 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  59 

went  to  bless  the  barn,  and  though  it  was  near  at 
hand  he  had  to  rest,  worn  out,  by  the  wayside  on  his 
return.  And  as  he  rested  '  There  came  up  to  him  a 
white  pack-horse,  the  same  that  used,  as  a  willing 
servant,  to  carry  the  milk-vessels  from  the  cowshed 
to  the  monastery.'  Nuzzling  its  head  into  his  breast 
it  whinnied  piteously  and  tears  ran  from  its  eyes. 
Diormit,  Columba's  faithful  attendant,  would  have 
driven  it  away,  but  Columba  forbade  him.  '  Let  it 
alone,  as  it  is  so  fond  of  me,'  he  said.  '  Let  it  pour 
out  its  bitter  grief  into  my  bosom.  Lo  !  thou,  as 
thou  art  a  man,  and  hast  a  rational  soul,  canst  know 
nothing  of  my  departure  hence,  except  what  I  myself 
have  just  told  you ;  but  to  this  brute  beast,  devoid 
of  reason,  the  Creator  Himself  hath  evidently  in 
some  way  made  it  known  that  its  master  is  going  to 
leave  it.' 

Later  on  in  the  day  St.  Columba  laboured  at  his 
daily  task  of  transcribing  the  Psalter.  But  his  tired 
body  sought  its  rest,  and  the  hand  that  had  so  un- 
weariedly  worked  in  the  service  of  God  and  of  man 
was  worn  out  at  last.  At  the  end  of  the  verse, 
'  They  that  seek  the  Lord  shall  not  want  any  good 
thing,'  he  stopped.  '  Here,'  said  he,  '  at  the  end  of 
the  page,  I  must  stop  ;  and  what  follows  let  Baithene 
write.'  When  evening  fell  he  went  to  the  nocturnal 
vigils  in  the  church,  and  then,  returning  to  his  hut 
and  lying  on  the  bare  flagstone  that  was  his  bed. 


60  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

with  a  stone  for  his  pillow,  he  gave  his  valedictory 
address  to  the  brethren :  *  Be  at  peace,  and  have 
unfeigned  charity  among  yourselves.' 

As  the  bell  tolled  midnight  he  rose  and  hastened 
to  the  church,  going  so  quickly  that  he  reached  it 
before  any  of  the  others.  Diormit  followed  him, 
and  4  feeling  his  way  in  the  darkness,  as  the  brethren 
had  not  yet  brought  in  the  lights,  he  found  the  saint 
lying  before  the  altar ;  and  raising  Mm  up  a  little, 
he  sat  down  beside  him,  and  laid  his  holy  head  on  his 
bosom.  Meanwhile  the  rest  of  the  monks  ran  in 
hastily  in  a  body  with  their  lights,  and,  beholding 
their  dying  Father,  burst  into  lamentations.  And 
the  saint,  as  we  have  been  told  by  some  who  were 
present,  even  before  his  soul  departed,  opened  wide 
his  eyes  and  looked  round  him  from  side  to  side, 
with  a  countenance  full  of  wonderful  joy  and  gladness, 
no  doubt  seeing  the  holy  angels  coming  to  meet  him. 
Diormit  then  raised  the  holy  right  hand  of  the  saint, 
that  he  might  bless  the  assembled  monks.  And  the 
venerable  father  moved  his  hand  at  the  same  time, 
as  well  as  he  was  able — that  as  he  could  not  in  words 
while  his  soul  was  departing,  he  might  at  least,  by  the 
motion  of  his  hand,  be  seen  to  bless  his  brethren. 
And  having  given  them  his  holy  benediction  in  this 
way,  he  immediately  breathed  his  last.  His  face 
still  remained  ruddy  and  brightened  in  a  wonderful 
way  from  the  heavenly  vision,  so  that  he  had  the 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  61 

appearance  not  so  much  of  one  dead  as  of  one  that 
sleepeth.' 

It  would  be  almost  impossible  to  overestimate 
the  influence  of  St.  Columba  upon  the  country  of 
his  adoption.  Many  of  the  peoples  of  Scotland 
who  had  lapsed  back  from  the  Roman  teaching  into 
Druidical  or  Norse  Paganism  were  won  back  to 
Christianity  by  him  and  by  his  followers.  And 
his  influence  was  no  transient  thing.  For  many  a 
day  to  come,  those  who  held  rule  north  of  the  Border 
were  influenced  by  the  teaching  of  him  who  might 
himself  have  been  a  king. 

Contemporary  with  St.  Columba,  yet  another 
saint  was  working  amongst  the  heathen  of  North 
Britain. 

Of  St.  Kentigern,  unfortunately,  we  have  no 
authentic  biography  such  as  that  for  which  we 
owe  Adamnan  so  big  a  debt.  In  his  case  legend 
seems  more  than  a  first  cousin  to  fairy  tale,  and  there 
are  many  variants  of  the  story  of  his  birth.  According 
to  one  of  these,  Loth,  King  of  the  Lothians,  son  of 
King  Arthur's  enemy  Modred,  '  a  man  half  pagan,' 
had  a  daughter  named  Thenew.  Thenew  became  a 
Christian  and  refused  to  marry  the  heathen  prince 
chosen  for  her  by  her  father.  On  being  given  her 
choice  between  marriage  and  being  handed  over  to 
the  care  of  a  swineherd,  she  chose  the  latter.  The 
swineherd,  who  was  secretly  a  Christian,  treated  the 


62  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

princess  well,  but  in  those  East  Lothian  woods  where 
the  swineherd's  flocks  revelled  amongst  acorns  and 
beech  mast,  her  noble  suitor  found  Thenew  and 
revenged  himself  on  her  for  her  scorn.  Great  then 
was  the  rage  of  King  Loth  against  his  outraged 
daughter.  The  '  man  half  pagan  '  had  no  mercy, 
and  commanded  that  the  laws  of  Lothian  should  be 
fulfilled  and  Thenew  stoned  to  death.  But  she  was 
of  the  blood  royal,  and  no  one  dared  cast  a  stone. 
Up  the  steep  side  of  Dunpender  Law — now  Traprain 
— they  dragged  the  princess,  and  from  the  top  of  a 
crag  they  hurled  her  down.  She  reached  the  bottom 
unhurt,  and  King  Loth,  in  great  amazement,  decreed 
that  she  should  be  cast  upon  the  mercy  of  the 
sea.  4  If  she  be  worthy  of  life,  her  God  will  free 
her  from  the  peril  of  death,  if  He  so  will,'  said 
he.  So,  to  where  the  waters  of  the  Firth  of  Forth 
lap  on  the  seaweed-covered  rocks  of  Aberlady  Bay, 
they  took  the  hapless  princess.  In  a  coracle  they 
set  her  adrift — merciless  man  behind  her,  before 
her  sky  and  waves,  and  the  mercy  of  the  God  whom 
the  heathen  did  not  know.  Into  the  deep  water, 
right  out  past  the  Isle  of  May,  drifted  that  little 
boat  of  hides.  Darkness  came  down,  and  still  it 
rose  and  fell  on  the  waves  that  lapped  against  its 
side.  At  dawn  the  tide  carried  it  in  on  to  the  sands 
at  Culross,  a  few  miles  from  the  mouth  of  the  river 
Forth.  Some  herds  had  had  a  fire  on  the  beach 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  63 

the  day  before,  and  to  its  ashes  the  princess  wearily 
dragged  herself.  As  she  lay  there,  a  sudden  gust 
of  wind  scattered  some  sparks  that  still  smouldered, 
and  the  wood  blazed  merrily  once  again.  Beside 
the  fire  thus  providentially  lighted,  her  baby  was 
born — sky  his  covering,  sand  his  first  bed,  little 
waves  crooning  his  earliest  lullaby.  Some  herds 
found  the  mother  and  child,  and  while  some  of  them 
fed  her,  others  hastened  to  Culross  to  tell  the  saint 
who  lived  there  of  their  strange  find. 

*  Thanks  be  to  God,'  said  St.  Servanus,   '  for  he 
shall  be  my  dear  one.' 

*  For,'  says  the  chronicler,  '  as  the  child  was  being 
born,  while  the  saint  was  in  his  oratory  after  morning 
lauds,  he  had  heard  on  high  the  Gloria  in  excelsis 
being  solemnly  sung.' 

So  did  the  outcast  princess  and  her  son  find  sanc- 
tuary. The  child  was  christened  Kentigern,  trained 
by  Servanus,  and  so  beloved  in  the  monastery  that 
he  was  known  as  Mungo,  from  the  Cymric  Mwyn  Cu, 
'  my  dear  one.' 

On  reaching  manhood  Kentigern  travelled  west- 
ward, and  at  Molendinar  Burn,  at  a  hamlet  called 
Cathures,  he  founded  a  monastery.  No  visible  trace 
of  it  remains,  and  it  is  hard  to  sift  out  what  is  fact 
and  what  is  mere  monkish  fancy  in  the  life  of  this 
Scottish  saint.  But  at  Glasgow,  the  city  that  stands 
where  Cathures  once  was,  St.  Mungo's  patron  saint- 


64  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

ship  remains  secure,  while  Thenew  is  said  to  have 
her  name  perpetuated,  if  transmogrified,  by  St. 
Enoch's  railway  station.  Surely  a  terrifying  monu- 
ment, could  she  but  return,  for  one  who  braved 
winds  and  waves  and  the  cruelty  of  men,  but  was 
spared  the  din,  the  roar,  and  nerve-torturing  rush 
of  a  railway  station  of  the  twentieth  century. 

Monks  of  later  days  tell  us  how  St.  Kentigern 
clothed  himself.  Next  his  skin  came  a  rough  garment, 
then  a  second  of  goat's  hair,  above  which  was  an  upper 
garment  such  as  fishermen  wore.  Over  this  came  a 
white  alb,  with  a  stole  about  his  neck.  He  carried 
a  pastoral  staff  without  any  gold  or  jewelled  adorn- 
ment, simply  the  plain  wooden  crook  of  a  shepherd 
of  sheep. 

A  rough  flock  must  Kentigern  have  had  to  herd. 
In  the  remote  regions  where  the  Druids  still  held 
their  sway  he  carried  on  his  labours.  For  eight  years 
he  was  at  Lochquharret,  now  Borthwick,  on  the  Heriot 
Water.  In  the  wood  of  Caledon,  and  presumably 
at  Tweedsmuir,  he  taught,  and  it  may  be  that  it 
was  a  cross  of  his  erecting  that  gave  its  name  to  the 
famous  old  wayside  inn  by  the  side  of  the  Tweed — 
the  Crook  Inn. 

His  name  is  associated  with  a  prayer  that  was 
prayed  with  fervour  by  the  Scottish  Borderers  in 
the  fifteenth  century.  A  plague  that  was  slaying 
in  England  threatened  Scotland  with  invasion,  and 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  65 

the  English  declared  its  first  ravages  on  the  Scottish 
side  to  be  the  visitation  of  God,  sent  by  His  grace 
to  call  the  Borderers  to  repentance.  With,  perhaps, 
less  humility  than  venom,  did  the  Scottish  Borderers 
'  pit  up  '  the  prayer :  '  Code  and  Saint  Mungo,  Saint 
Ronayn,  and  Saint  Andrew,  schield  us  this  day  fro 
Code's  grace,  and  the  foul  death  that  Englishmen 
dien  on.' 

In  Strathclyde  St.  Kentigern  suffered  persecution, 
and  had  to  flee  for  refuge  to  the  Christian  Britons  in 
North  Wales.  There  he  founded  St.  Asaph's  monas- 
tery, and  did  much  good  work,  and  in  573,  after  the 
great  victory  of  the  Christians  at  Ardderyd,  he  was 
recalled  to  Scotland  by  Rhydderch  Hael,  the  Christian 
king  and  victor. 

At  Hoddam  in  Dumfriesshire  he  and  the  665  monks 
who  came  with  him  from  Wales  were  met  by  King 
Rhydderch  and  his  people,  and  there  St.  Kentigern 
delivered  to  the  folk  of  his  northern  see  an  episcopal 
address.  From  it,  if  only  we  may  accept  it  as  simple 
verity  and  not  as  unauthenticated  tradition  or  as 
the  composition  of  a  monk  of  later  days  with  an 
over-fertile  imagination,  we  can  learn  what  was  the 
creed  of  the  Christian  who  lived  in  the  Lowlands  of 
Scotland  more  than  thirteen  hundred  years  ago. 

Said  Kentigern  '  that  idols  were  dumb,  the  vain 
inventions  of  men,  fitter  for  the  fire  than  for  worship.' 
'  The  elements,'  he  said,  in  which  they  believed  as 


66  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

deities,  were  '  creatures  and  formations  adapted  by 
the  disposition  of  their  Maker  to  the  use,  help,  and 
assistance  of  men.'  But  Woden,  whom  they,  and 
especially  the  Angles,  believed  to  be  the  chief  deity, 
from  whom  they  derived  their  origin,  and  to  whom 
the  fourth  day  of  the  week  is  dedicated,  was,  he 
asserted,  'in  all  probability  a  mortal  man,  King  of 
the  Saxons,  by  faith  a  Pagan.' 

At  his  monastery  of  Glasghu,  by  the  then  clear 
stream  of  the  Molendinar  Burn,  Kentigern  met  with 
Columba.  And  at  Glasghu,  the  apostle  of  Strath- 
clyde,  old  and  full  of  years,  died  and  was  buried. 
'  Without  doubt,'  as  one  writes,  4  the  saint  is  histori- 
cally the  cause  of  Glasgow,  and  all  the  commerce 
that  now  rolls  through  that  mighty  mart.' 

Kentigern  was  dead,  Columba  was  dead,  Aidan, 
Christian  King  of  the  Scots,  fought  for  them  no  more, 
and  Aedelfrid  his  conqueror  had  also  died,  when 
Columba's  influence  began  to  be  felt  on  the  Border 
more  than  it  had  ever  been  before.  Eadwine,  Chris- 
tian King  of  Deira,  sponsor  for  the  city  of  Edinburgh, 
was  slain  in  battle  in  633.  Osuald,  a  son  of  Aedelfrid, 
the  Pagan  king  whom  Eadwine  had  conquered,  had 
fled  for  sanctuary  to  lona.  There  he  was  baptized 
by  St.  Columba  and  by  him  taught  his  simple  doctrine 
of  faith  and  peace  and  love. 

When  Osuald  succeeded,  on  Eadwine's  death,  to 
the  throne  of  Deira,  one  of  his  first  acts  as  king  was  to 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  67 

send  to  the  little  island  in  the  Western  Sea,  where  he 
had  learned  all  the  good  that  he  knew,  and  to  ask  for 
a  holy  man  to  come  and  teach  his  unruly  subjects. 

To  him  came  Cormac,  but  Cormac's  mission  was  a 
failure.  He  returned  to  lona  with  a  report  that  the 
Border  folk  were  '  stubborn  and  untameable  bar- 
barians.' To  his  tale  of  the  hopelessness  of  the  mission 
the  brethren  listened,  sad  at  heart.  But  one  of  them, 
Aidan,  knew  the  charity  which  '  hopeth  all  things.' 
When  the  speaker  had  come  to  the  end  of  his  doleful 
story,  Aidan  arose. 

*  It  seems  to  me,  my  brother,'  he  said,  '  you  have 
been  too  hard  upon  these  ignorant  people  ;  you  have 
not,  according  to  apostolic  counsel,  offered  them 
first  the  milk  of  gentle  doctrine,  to  bring  them  by 
degrees,  while  nourishing  them  with  the  divine  word, 
to  the  true  understanding  and  practice  of  the  more 
advanced  precepts.' 

A  few  days  later  Aidan  was  consecrated  Bishop 
of  Northumbria,  and  with  a  few  monks  in  his  train 
set  off  for  the  long  journey  from  lona  to  Bebbanburh. 

Near  Bamborough,  at  Lindisfarne,  or  the  Holy 
Isle,  he  placed  his  see  ;  preferring  to  more  stately 
sites  inland  the  little  rocky,  wind-swept  island,  where 
the  salt  spray  scourges  the  benty  blue  grass  on  the 
sand  dunes,  and  where  the  sea-birds'  mournful  clamour 
is  merged  into  the  boom  and  thunder  of  the  waves. 

Bede  tells  us  that  soon  after  the  installation  of  the 


68  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

new  bishop  *  churches  were  built  in  several  places  ; 
the  people  joyfully  flocked  to  hear  the  Word  ;  posses- 
sions and  lands  were  given  of  the  Bang's  bounty  to 
build  monasteries  ;  the  younger  Angles  were  by  their 
Scottish  masters  instructed.'  '  It  was  a  beautiful 
spectacle,'  he  says,  '  when  the  Bishop  was  preaching, 
and  was  not  quite  understood,  from  his  imperfect 
English,  and  the  King,  who  had  learned  Scotch  in 
his  exile,  acted  as  his  interpreter.'  And  further  he 
says  that  Aidan  '  received  twelve  boys  of  the  Anglic 
nation  to  be  instructed  in  Christ.'  One  of  these  lads, 
Cedde,  became  Bishop  of  Mercia,  and  we  know  him 
now  as  St.  Chad,  patron  saint  of  Lichfield,  while  Eata 
was  successively  Abbot  of  Mailros  and  Bishop  of 
Lindisfarne.  In  English  Northumbria  and  in  the 
regions  that  we  now  know  as  '  the  Borders,'  Aidan's 
labours  were  crowned  with  such  success  that  during 
Osuald's  reign  the  kingdom  of  Northumbria  was  won 
from  Paganism  to  Christianity.  In  the  reign  of 
Osuald's  successor  the  work  went  on,  and  Aidan, 
who  did  not  cease  to  be  a  humble,  simple  monk  when 
he  became  a  powerful  pontiff,  carried  the  Gospel  into 
the  wild  regions  of  the  Cheviots  and  of  Tweeddale. 

There  is  a  story  of  how  Oswin,  King  of  Deira, 
bestowed  on  his  bishop  a  fine  horse  with  handsome 
trappings,  a  fit  mount  for  a  prelate.  As  Aidan, 
riding  this  kingly  gift,  went  on  one  of  his  episcopal 
journeys,  a  poor  man  met  him  and  sought  an  alms. 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  69 

Straightway  the  bishop  dismounted  and  handed 
over  the  horse  to  the  man  who  was  poorer  than  himself. 

4  What  meanest  thou,  Lord  Bishop  ?  '  the  angry 
king  demanded.  4  Were  there  not  poorer  horses, 
or  other  less  costly  gifts  to  bestow  upon  a  beggar  ?  ' 

To  him  Aidan  made  reply — '  What  sayest  thou, 
king  ?  Is  yon  son  of  a  mare  more  precious  in  thy 
sight  than  yon  son  of  God  ?  ' 

Then,  the  historian  tells  us,  the  king  pondered 
the  bishop's  words,  and  before  he  sat  down  to  dine 
he  fell  on  his  knees  and  asked  pardon. 

'  No  more  shall  I  speak  of  it,'  he  said,  *  and  never 
more  regret  anything  of  mine  that  thou  givest  to  the 
children  of  God.' 

Many  monasteries  were  founded  by  Aidan,  one  of 
the  most  notable  being  that  of  Coldingham  in  Berwick- 
shire. It  was  a  double  monastery,  with  a  com- 
munity of  monks  and  another  of  nuns,  and  from  its 
first  abbess,  Aebba,  half-sister  of  Osuald,  St.  Abbs 
takes  its  name. 

From  the  bleak  coast  of  Berwickshire  Aidan  pur- 
sued his  missionary  labours  into  the  more  opulent 
district  that  is  now  known  as  Roxburgh.  Where 
trees  still  richly  clothe  the  banks  of  the  Tweed,  he 
founded  the  monastery  of  Mailros — from  maol  ros, 
the  naked  headland  in  the  wood. 

Three  or  four  miles  from  the  Melrose  of  to-day, 
with  the  Eildons  almost  overshadowing  it  on  the  west, 


70  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

and  the  red  scaurs  of  Bemersyde  rising  up  eastwards 
across  the  river,  the  names  of  Old  Melrose  and  of  the 
Monks'  Ford  are  all  that  are  left  to  tell  us  of  what 
was  once  the  most  important  monastery  between 
lona  and  Lindisfarne.  Eata,  one  of  the  Saxon  lads 
who  had  been  trained  by  St.  Aidan,  was  one  of  its 
abbots,  and  it  was  during  his  rule  that  Cuthbert, 
greatest  of  the  Border  saints,  came  to  claim  his  saint- 
ship. 

There  is  the  usual  perplexingly  contradictory  num- 
ber of  legends  of  Cuthbert's  birth,  but  it  seems  most 
probable  that  he  was  born  at  the  hamlet  of  Wrang- 
holm,  a  village  whose  site  is  now  marked  by  a  few 
rugged  old  ash-trees,  not  far  from  Smailholm  Tower. 
There  he  was  near  enough  Mailros  to  see  the  monks  as 
they  started  on  their  dangerous  journeys  amongst  the 
heathen  in  the  hill-country  of  the  Wood  of  Caledon, 
to  listen  to  many  a  tale  of  their  saintliness  and  heroism, 
and  sometimes  to  hear  the  tinkle  of  their  bell  and  the 
music  of  their  chanting  borne  across  the  river  to  the 
wooded  heights  above.  The  sight  of  men  tonsured 
from  ear  to  ear,  wearing  white  tunics  and  coarse 
cloaks  of  undyed  wool,  and  armed  only  with  a  pilgrim's 
staff  and  by  the  invisible  power  of  an  almighty  God, 
setting  forth  on  perilous  journeys  amongst  heathen 
people  who  most  probably  would  bestow  upon  them 
the  blessings  of  martyrdom,  must  have  fired  the 
imagination  and  stirred  the  zeal  of  an  intelligent  and 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  71 

spiritually  minded  boy.  Even  as  a  child,  we  are  told, 
he  strove  to  imitate  the  monks  of  Mailros,  praying 
and  keeping  vigil  in  the  night-time.  4  He  took 
delight  in  mirth  and  clamour,'  and  excelled  even  his 
elders  in  running,  wrestling,  jumping,  and  all  manly 
sports.  '  Because  he  was  agile  by  nature,  and  of  a 
quick  mind,  he  often  prevailed  in  boyish  contests  ; 
and  frequently  when  the  rest  were  tired,  he  alone 
would  hold  out,  and  look  triumphantly  around  to 
see  if  any  remained  to  contend  with  him  for  victory.' 
It  was  while  he  was  amusing  himself  with  other  boys, 
with  the  light-hearted  folly  of  their  age,  that  Cuthbert's 
first  call  came. 

According  to  his  ingenuous  biographer,  a  little  boy 
of  three  came  and  begged  him  not  to  be  so  foolish, 
and  Cuthbert  answered  him  jestingly.  In  a  passion 
of  tears  the  child  threw  himself  on  the  ground,  and  to 
Cuthbert,  who  vainly  strove  to  comfort  him,  sobbingly 
said  : — 

'  Wherefore  dost  thou,  the  holy  Cuthbert,  elder  and 
bishop,  thus  contravene  thy  nature  and  high  calling  ? 
It  becomes  not  thee,  whom  the  Lord  hath  appointed 
to  instruct  in  virtue  thine  elders,  to  be  thus  playing 
among  babes  ! ' 

Cuthbert's  heedless  days  were  over  when  his  second 
call  came.  He  was  a  shepherd  lad,  learning  to  know 
God  from  Nature  as  well  as  from  the  lives  of  the  holy 
monks.  In  those  times  there  were  wolves  and  other 


72  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

prowling  wild  beasts  against  which  flocks  had  to  be 
guarded,  and  the  laws  of  property  had  not  yet  become 
so  sacred  that  a  shepherd  could  pass  the  night  unarmed, 
fearless  of  human  enemies. 

On  the  heights  above  where  the  Leader  joins  the 
Tweed,  Cuthbert  and  his  fellows,  like  other  shepherds  of 
old,  watched  their  flocks  by  night.  And  to  Cuthbert, 
as  to  the  men  of  Bethlehem,  there  came  a  vision  of 
angels.  From  the  hillside  he  could  look  down  on 
the  thick  forest  whose  trees  whispered  echoes  of  the 
million  nameless  sounds  of  the  silent  night,  and  hear, 
far  below  him,  the  murmur  and  plash  of  the  river. 
Miles  down  the  valley,  on  the  other  side,  hidden  in 
the  woods,  was  the  monastery,  where  monks  held 
their  vigils.  And  while  the  other  shepherds  slept, 
Cuthbert  up  on  the  hillside  also  kept  vigil,  and  spent 
the  midnight  hours  in  prayer.  Many  miles  away, 
across  trackless  bog  and  forest,  at  the  Holy  Island 
on  the  eastern  coast,  St.  Aidan  lay  that  night  a-dying. 
And  as  Aidan's  spirit  passed  away,  a  wonderful 
vision  formed  itself  before  the  eyes  of  the  shepherd 
boy  on  the  heights  of  the  Leader.  Through  the 
darkness  of  the  sky  broke  a  long  shaft  of  light,  and 
down  the  glorious  path  angels  descended,  received 
amongst  them  '  a  spirit  of  surpassing  brightness,'  and 
with  him  speedily  winged  their  way  heavenwards. 
In  prayer  and  exaltation  Cuthbert  spent  the  remainder 
of  the  night,  and  when,  next  day,  he  heard  that 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  73 

St.  Aidan  had  died  at  the  time  of  his  vision,  he  gave 
his  flocks  into  the  care  of  their  owners  and  set  out  for 
Mailros.  He  was  aware  that  at  Lindisfarne  there 
were  many  saintly  men,  but  'the  great  reputation  of 
Boisil,  a  monk  and  priest  of  surpassing  merit,'  drew 
him  to  the  monastery  he  had  known  from  his  child- 
hood. When  he  had  forded  the  Tweed  and  reached 
the  Abbey,  he  leaped  from  his  horse,  handed  his  spear 
to  an  attendant,  and  was  about  to  enter  the  church 
to  pray.  At  the  door  stood  Boisil,  the  prior. 
Straightway,  to  those  who  were  with  him,  he  said— 
4  Behold  a  servant  of  the  Lord ! '  and  welcomed 
Cuthbert  with  gladness.  To  him  Cuthbert  told  the 
story  of  the  past  night,  and  that  he  had  come  to  enlist 
himself  as  a  soldier  and  servant  of  Christ.  A  few 
days  later,  when  Eata  visited  the  monastery,  Cuthbert 
received  the  tonsure  and  was  enrolled  among  the 
brethren. 

Under  the  care  of  the  good  St.  Boisil,  his  religious 
education  speedily  progressed.  The  St.  Boswells  of 
to-day  is  a  reminder  to  the  Border  folk  of  the  '  man 
of  great  sanctity  and  of  a  prophetic  spirit '  who  was 
Prior  of  Mailros,  and  the  old  name  of  St.  Boswells 
also  claims,  in  local  tradition,  to  have  connection  with 
the  minor  saint.  For,  in  664,  Prior  Boisil  was  cut 
off  by  the  Yellow  Plague,  a  great  pestilence  that  was 
then  raging,  and  when  the  old  people  of  the  district 
still  refer  to  St.  Boswells  as  '  Allessudden,'  there  are 


74  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

those  who  would  have  us  believe  that  BoisiPs  death, 
'  all-o'-a-sudden,'  is  responsible  for  the  title.  Another 
of  the  saintly  monks  of  Old  Mailros  has  left  his  name 
to  a  well-known  Border  village.  The  picturesque 
little  straggling  street  of  white  houses  that  suns  itself 
on  the  southern  slope  of  the  Eildons,  and  which  owns 
a  view  that  the  world  might  envy,  was  apparently  a 
mission  station  of  Bothan  the  monk.  Whether  or 
not  he  is  responsible  for  the  rude  stone  cross  that  still 
marks  the  centre  of  the  village,  who  can  say  ?  But, 
obviously,  it  was  St.  Bothan  who  gave  to  Bowden 
with  its  dene — its  thick  wood  and  its  winding  burn— 
the  old  name  of  the  dene  of  St.  Bothan — Bothandene — 
just  as  he  acted  as  sponsor  to  the  parish  of  Gifford  in 
East  Lothian,  once  known  as  Bothans. 

From  the  day  he  joined  the  monastery,  St.  Cuthbert 
worked  indeed  as  a  worthy  member  of  the  Milites 
Christi.  As  in  his  boyhood,  he  was  a  wrestler  and  a 
fighter,  but  he  wrestled  now  with  4  spiritual  wicked- 
ness and  with  the  rulers  of  darkness.'  Even  as  he 
had  excelled  in  sport,  he  now  excelled  his  fellow- 
monks  in  all  the  self-denials  and  austerities  of  the 
monastic  life.  '  In  reading,  working,  watching,  and 
praying,  he  fairly  outdid  them  all.'  That  he  was  '  of 
a  robust  frame,  unimpaired  strength,  and  fit  for  any 
labour  which  he  might  be  disposed  to  take  in  hand,' 
Bede  also  tells  us.  And  a  phenomenal  physique  he 
must  certainly  have  possessed  in  order  to  withstand 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  75 

all  the  rigours  to  which  he  now  subjected  himself. 
When  the  woods  of  the  Tweed  were  leafless,  the 
brown  reeds  frosted  white,  and  the  water,  of  steel  and 
ebony,  almost  icebound,  Cuthbert  would  go  at  night- 
fall to  the  river,  and,  wading  into  the  stream,  would 
stand  there,  chanting  the  Psalms,  until  the  yellow 
morning  light  called  him  back  to  the  Abbey.  So  did 
he  strive  to  mortify  the  flesh,  to  extinguish  the  fires 
of  passion. 

His  novitiate  over,  Cuthbert's  work  as  evangelist 
was  carried  on  with  the  same  magnificent  zeal  and 
whole-heartedness  which  had  always  characterised 
him.  Aidan  did  not  know  the  speech  of  the  Borderers, 
and  required  an  interpreter.  Cuthbert  was  himself  a 
Borderer,  and  knew  both  the  tongue  and  the  character 
of  his  people.  With  splendid  enthusiasm  he  carried 
on  his  mission  work.  Sometimes  on  foot,  sometimes 
on  horseback,  he  went  from  village  to  village.  His 
fiery  zeal,  his  simple,  boundless  belief  in  the  faith  he 
preached,  his  fine  oratory,  and  his  own  powerful,  mag- 
netic personality,  were  irresistible  compelling  forces, 
and  the  heathen  of  the  Border  hills  were  by  him  won 
over  to  Christianity.  For  weeks  at  a  time  he  would  be 
away  from  the  monastery,  4  frequenting  most  those 
places,  preaching  most  in  those  villages  which  lay 
far  in  the  high  and  rugged  mountains,  which  others 
feared  to  visit,  and  which  by  their  poverty  and 
barbarism  repelled  the  approach  of  teachers.'  To 


76  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

the  wilds  of  Tweedsmuir  he  penetrated,  and  founded 
Chapel  Kingledoors,  by  a  lonely  mountain  burn.  To 
the  shores  of  the  Solway — where  Kirkcudbright  (the 
Kirk  of  Cuthbert)  bears  his  name — to  the  Forth,  and 
even  as  far  as  Strath  Tay,  his  love  for  the  souls  of  men 
led  him.  For  a  short  time  the  scene  of  his  labours 
and  form  of  his  work  were  changed,  for  as  hospitaller, 
or  guest-master,  he  went  with  Abbot  Eata  and  some  of 
the  brethren  to  a  monastery  at  Ripon.  There,  we  are 
told,  he  entertained  an  angel  unawares,  and  a  miracle 
ensued.  There  had  always  been  a  difference  between 
the  form  of  tonsure  and  the  date  of  holding  Easter  in 
the  Roman  and  Celtic  Churches,  and  controversy 
between  those  whose  religion  came  from  Ireland,  via 
lona,  and  those  who  had  got  it  direct  from  Rome, 
had  more  than  once  waxed  hot.  Now  that  the  Celtic 
Church  had  found  a  footing  so  far  south,  the  Roman 
party  felt  that  serious  steps  must  be  taken,  and 
ecclesiastical  jealousy  quickly  drove  out  Eata  and  his 
monks  and  sent  them  north  again. 

In  664  the  Yellow  Plague  brought  many  extra 
labours  to  Cuthbert.  He  himself  was  smitten,  but 
his  iron  constitution  carried  him  safely  through,  and, 
when  Prior  Boisil  died,  he  was  made  Prior  of  Mailros  in 
his  stead.  The  coming  of  the  pestilence  had  shaken 
the  faith  of  the  Borderers,  whose  Christianity  was  of 
such  very  recent  growth.  Looking  upon  the  plague 
as  vengeance  from  their  discarded  gods,  they  quickly 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  77 

lapsed  from  the  new  religion  and  sought  safety  in  the 
use  of  charms  and  of  amulets,  and  of  all  the  pagan 
rites,  in  the  efficacy  of  which  they  had  once  believed. 
But  Cuthbert,  still  weak  and  haggard,  and  bearing 
in  his  body  traces,  which  he  never  lost,  of  his  terrible 
illness,  fought  those  lapses  of  faith  as  he  had  fought 
the  plague.  The  people  of  Northumberland,  of 
Tweeddale,  of  Merse  and  Teviotdale,  of  '  the  Wood  of 
Caledon,' — the  half -savage  people  in  the  hill  country, 
the  rough  fisher-folk  of  the  eastern  coast,  had  to  listen 
again  to  his  compelling  oratory,  and  put  away  in 
penitence  their  reinstated  gods.  For,  says  Bede, 
'  he  had  such  an  angelic  countenance  that  none  dared 
to  conceal  from  him  the  secrets  of  their  hearts.' 

It  was  while  he  was  Prior  of  Mailros  that  he  went  to 
visit  St.  Aebba,  Abbess  of  Coldingham,  in  her  monas- 
tery up  on  the  cliffs,  above  the  nesting  sea-birds' 
dolorous  clamour,  and  the  crash  and  boom  of  the 
North  Sea  billows. 

While  others  slept,  St.  Cuthbert  would  leave  the 
monastery  and  go  by  the  rocky  path  to  the  shore, 
only  returning  in  time  for  morning  prayer.  A  spying 
monk,  curious  to  know  how  the  saint  spent  the  dark 
hours,  one  night  followed  him.  Down  the  cliffs, 
where,  in  spring,  orchises  and  primroses  star  the  rough 
short  grass,  strode  St.  Cuthbert,  to  the  stony  beach 
where  the  tide  laps  over  brown,  seaweed-covered  rocks, 
and  waves  that  are  never  gentle  break  against  rugged 


78  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

boulders  that  have  seen  many  and  many  a  wreck. 
And  still  onward  he  strode,  until  the  icy  water  was 
breast  high,  and  there  halted.  All  through  the  night, 
until  the  chilly  dawn,  the  monk  could  hear  St.  Cuth- 
bert's  voice  raised  in  praise  to  God.  All  through  the 
night  the  chanting  of  the  Psalms  rose  above  the  wash 
and  moan  of  the  waves.  Then,  when  the  first  pale 
golden  streaks  showed  where  grey  sky  ended  and 
grey  sea  began,  St.  Cuthbert  waded  ashore,  and  the 
monk  saw  two  otters  follow  him,  tenderly  rub  them- 
selves against  his  wet  feet,  and  dry  them  with  their 
fur. 

4  A  ridiculous  monkish  legend,'  says  the  enlightened 
reader  of  to-day.  Yet  are  we  not  too  apt  to  dismiss 
the  tales  of  the  saints  and  of  the  animals  which  served 
them  as  mere  pieces  of  foolish  embroidery  ? 

'  He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best 
All  things  both  great  and  small.' 

And  if  the  saints — more  especially  the  hermit  saints- 
made  friends  of  the  wild  creatures,  is  it  any  more 
wonderful  than  what  is  done  in  our  own  day  by  the 
man  who  is  deeply  skilled  in  woodcraft,  and  who  does 
not  wish  to  kill  but  to  understand  ?  The  human 
being  who  could,  hour  after  hour,  remain  stiff  and 
motionless,  who  took  no  apparent  notice  of  the  living 
things  around  him,  and  who  was  always  gentle, 
always  merciful,  must  unconsciously  have  tamed  the 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  79 

creatures  that  soon  learned  to  have  no  fear  of  him. 
Undoubtedly,  too,  there  are  men  who  have  over 
animals  a  magnetic  power  which  is  denied  to  the 
common  run,  and  it  may  be  that  to  St.  Cuthbert, 
once  a  shepherd  lad  wise  in  woodcraft,  this  power 
was  known.  On  one  of  his  journeyings  it  was  an 
eagle  that  ministered  to  him  and  to  the  boy  who 
went  with  him  to  serve  the  Mass.  They  had  no 
food  left,  but  the  eagle  gave  up  to  them  the  fish  he 
had  just  caught,  and  the  boy  eagerly  seized  it. 

'  Is  our  fisherman  to  be  allowed  no  share  ?  '  asked 
the  saint.  So  the  fish  was  cut  in  two,  and  the  eagle 
had  his  lawful  half. 

In  664,  at  a  Synod  at  Whitby,  King  Oswin  decreed 
that  the  Roman  form  of  tonsure  and  date  of  Easter 
were  those  that  were  to  have  the  royal  support,  and 
the  Columban  clergy  left  Northumbria  in  a  body. 

Eata  and  Cuthbert  were  men  much  too  large  in 
mind  and  soul  to  be  swayed  by  questions  of  form 
and  custom  or  embittered  by  party  spirit.  The  souls 
of  men  meant  more  to  them  than  any  form  of  tonsure, 
and  so  they  conformed  to  the  Roman  rule. 

In  the  same  year  Cuthbert  was  made  Prior  of  Lindis- 
farne,  and  left  the  woods  by  the  silvery  Tweed  for  the 
flat,  sandy,  treeless  reach  of  Holy  Island  in  the  grey 
North  Sea. 

At  Lindisfarne  he  found  dissension,  some  of  the 
monks  being  stubborn  in  their  belief  that  where 


80  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

tonsure  and  Easter  were  concerned,  Rome  was  utterly 
wrong.  *  Rome  errs,  Alexandria  errs  :  all  the  world 
errs ;  only  the  Scoti  and  Britones  are  in  the  right.' 
Such  was  their  belief, — in  matters  of  Church  govern- 
ment a  spirit  that  seems  to  have  survived  in  a  most 
lively  manner  from  the  days  when  a  priest  prided 
himself  on  being  '  nae  Roman,  but  a  Culdee.' 

It  required  infinite  tact  and  most  infinite  patience 
to  handle  these  recalcitrant  brethren,  but  both  of  these 
qualities  St.  Cuthbert  possessed  in  marked  degree. 
No  sneer  used  by  an  angry  disputant  could  sting  him 
into  a  hot  or  discourteous  retort.  When  the  atmos- 
phere grew  too  tropical  for  the  growth  of  brotherly 
love,  St.  Cuthbert  would  close  the  discussion,  always 
with  the  same  calmness  of  mien  and  '  placidity  of 
countenance  '  that  made  his  historians  marvel.  Next 
day  when  devotional  exercises  and  sleep  had  calmed 
the  angry  passions  of  the  opposing  monks,  he  would 
recapitulate  his  arguments,  until,  '  by  the  modest 
power  of  his  patience,'  he  won  them  over  to  his  own 
point  of  view.  On  those  outside  the  monastery  his 
influence  was  equally  strong.  He  who  was  to  himself 
so  harsh,  was  always  just,  but  always  infinitely 
tender  and  merciful,  to  others.  'No  one  went  away 
from  him  without  consolation ;  no  one  took  back 
with  him  the  sorrow  of  mind  that  he  had  brought.' 

For  twelve  years  he  laboured  as  Prior  of  Lindisfarne. 
And  if  it  be  the  case  that  '  Holiness  is  an  infinite 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  81 

compassion  for  others  ;  that  greatness  is  to  take  the 
common  things  of  life  and  walk  truly  among  them  ; 
that  happiness  is  a  great  love  and  much  serving,' 
then  to  Holiness,  Greatness,  and  Happiness  did 
St.  Cuthbert  most  surely  attain. 

Yet,  in  the  path  towards  holiness,  he  felt  that 
much  still  lay  before  him.  At  the  age  of  thirty-nine 
he  gave  up  the  monastic  life  and  sought  peace  for 
his  soul  on  one  of  the  Fame  Islands  that  we  can 
see  lying  beyond  Lindisfarne,  purple  black,  far  out 
among  the  waves. 

It  is  still  a  favourite  haunt  of  the  sea-birds,  that 
rise  with  shrieks  of  deafening  discord  from  their 
nests  on  the  rocks,  when  boats  go  near  the  island, 
but  in  the  saint's  day  it  was  reputed  to  be  haunted 
not  only  by  sea-birds  but  by  evil  spirits.  Soon, 
however,  so  the  ingenuously  recording  monks  tell  us, 
St.  Cuthbert  drove  out  the  devils,  and  tamed  the 
screaming  gulls,  that  spared  his  little  harvest  of 
barley  at  his  words  of  mild  command.  The  eider 
ducks  which  nest  on  the  Fame  Islands  bear  the  name 
of  '  St.  Cuthbert's  ducks '  to  this  day.  With  his 
own  hands  Cuthbert  built  for  himself  a  little  hut 
of  stones  and  turf,  thatching  it  with  dried  grass, 
with  a  partition  between  tiny  oratory  and  tinier 
living-room.  In  the  best  of  weather  St.  Cuthbert's 
island  is  a  wind-swept,  storm-beaten,  barren  rock ; 
but,  when  gales  blow,  it  is  the  plaything  of  the  waves 


82  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

which  break  against  it,  driving  their  drenching  spray 
and  tufts  of  salt  foam  from  east  and  north,  for  the 
breakers  on  west  and  south  to  meet  and  fling  back 
again  yet  more  furiously.  A  hut  of  turf  was  fair 
prey  for  the  tempests,  and  soon  the  walls  had  many 
a  crevice  through  which  the  winter  winds  could 
blow  chill  and  shrewd.  When  St.  Cuthbert's  island 
knew  him  no  more,  the  hermit  monk  who  succeeded 
him  nailed  a  calf-skin  on  to  the  inner  wall  to  keep 
out  wind  and  wet,  so  many  holes  were  there.  But 
St.  Cuthbert,  who  had  no  thought  for  any  such  luxury, 
stopped  the  chinks  as  best  he  could  with  mud  and 
wisps  of  hay.  For  nine  years  he  lived  the  life  of  an 
anchorite,  far  from  the  disputes  of  men.  But  a 
prophecy  made  by  his  early  master,  St.  Boisil,  as  he 
lay  dying,  had  yet  to  be  fulfilled. 

*  Thou  shalt  be  bishop '  he  had  said  to  the  young 
monk,  and  from  the  cares  and  responsibilities  that  the 
pontifical  post  demanded  Cuthbert  had  always  shrunk. 
To  the  see  of  Lindisfarne  he  was  called  by  Ecgfrid, 
King  of  Northumbria. 

A  deputation  waited  on  him  and  returned  with 
the  tidings  that  the  saint  would  not  be  persuaded  to 
leave  his  cell.  Then  the  king  himself,  with  an  escort 
of  nobles  and  Church  dignitaries,  and  with  many  of 
the  brethren  from  Lindisfarne,  sailed  over  to  the 
Fames.  On  their  knees  they  besought  Cuthbert  to 
come,  and  Ecgfrid's  entreaties  and  tears  prevailed. 
Before  his  consecration  at  York,  Cuthbert  revisited 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  83 

Mailros.  Many  a  strange  path  had  he  trod  since  his 
little  playfellow  prophesied  his  future  greatness  at  the 
village  on  the  heights  above  the  Tweed. 

Pride  of  place  had  never  been  known  to  Cuthbert, 
and  as  bishop  he  worked  with  even  greater  humility 
and  more  unsparing  devotion  than  he  had  done  in  the 
days  before  his  hermit  life.  Angles  and  Picts,  Scots, 
Saxons,  and  Britons  he  ministered  to,  for,  as  of  old, 
no  place  was  too  remote,  no  people  too  barbarous 
to  be  sought  out  by  him.  In  time  of  plague  he 
laboured  as  might  have  done  the  humblest  novice 
who  sought  for  sanctity. 

4  Is  there  any  one  here  to  whom  we  have  not  yet 
ministered  ?  '  he  would  ask  his  chaplain  when  they 
had  visited  a  plague-stricken  village.  '  Or  have  we 
now  seen  all  the  sick  here,  and  shall  we  go 
elsewhere  ?  ' 

The  sword  was  brighter  than  ever,  but  the  scabbard 
was  growing  worn.  St.  Cuthbert  felt  that  the  end 
was  not  far  off,  and  so  asked  to  be  relieved  from  his 
episcopal  duties  and  allowed  to  return  to  his  hut 
by  the  sea.  He  made  a  farewell  visitation  of  his 
diocese,  admonishing  and  consoling  all  the  faithful, 
and  on  Christmas  Day  686  A.D.  he  said  farewell  to 
the  brethren  and  returned  to  Fame.  As  he  entered 
the  boat  that  was  to  take  him  there,  the  monks 
crowded  around  him. 

4  Tell  us,  Lord  Bishop,'  asked  one,  *  when  we  may 
hope  for  your  return  ?  ' 


84  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

4  When  you  shall  bring  my  body  back  here,'  replied 
Cuthbert. 

For  two  months  only,  the  two  cruellest  months 
of  the  year  on  that  bleak  coast,  St.  Cuthbert  lived 
in  the  retreat  that  he  loved.  The  brethren  visited 
him  as  often  as  might  be,  but  sometimes,  for 
days  together,  storms  would  prevent  them  from 
crossing  to  the  island.  Once,  after  a  five  days' 
absence,  they  found  him  lying  in  the  little  hospice 
he  had  built  for  them  by  the  landing-stage,  too  weak 
and  ill  to  move.  They  asked  him  what  he  had  had 
for  food  as  he  lay  helpless  and  untended.  He  showed 
them  five  onions,  one  of  them  partly  eaten.  *  This,' 
he  said  contentedly,  '  has  been  my  food  for  five  days, 
for  whenever  my  mouth  became  dry  and  parched 
with  thirst,  I  cooled  and  refreshed  myself  by  tasting 
these.' 

Very  shortly  afterwards  the  end  came.  Lying  on 
the  floor  of  his  little  oratory,  opposite  the  altar,  he 
gave  his  last  messages  to  the  monks  of  Lindisfarne. 
He  asked  that  his  body  might  be  rolled  in  a  linen 
sheet  that  St.  Aebba  had  given  to  him.  '  Bury  me  by 
the  Cross,'  he  said,  referring  to  the  wooden  cross  he 
had  erected  near  the  hut.  *I  would  fain  rest  here 
where  I  have  fought  my  humble  fight  for  the  Lord.' 
But  even  in  that  he  was  content  to  give  up  his 
own  will  and  consent  to  their  wish  that  he  might  lie 
at  Lindisfarne. 

When  they  asked  him  for  his  valedictory  commands, 


THE  SAINTS  ON  THE  BORDER  85 

he  spoke  to  them  of  humility  and  of  peace.  c  Keep 
peace,'  he  said,  '  one  with  another,  and  have  divine 
charity  ever  amongst  you.'  All  through  a  wakeful 
night  he  prayed,  and  having  very  early  received  the 
Eucharist  he  raised  up  his  folded  hands  in  prayer  and 
gently  passed  away. 

The  monks  at  Lindisfarne  were  chanting  matins 
when,  on  a  high  rock  on  the  Fame,  two  little  lights 
sprang  up.  The  monk  who  watched  for  the  signal 
knew  that  it  was  one  of  the  brethren  on  Cuthbert's 
island,  with  a  candle  in  either  hand.  He  ran  to  the 
church  and  broke  the  news  that  Cuthbert,  saint  and 
bishop,  at  the  age  of  fifty  years,  had  gone  forth  that 
dark  winter  morning  on  his  last  journey  into  the 
unknown. 

Many  miracles  were  attributed  during  his  lifetime  to 
the  saint.  After  his  death,  the  usual  fabric  of  miracu- 
lous legend  was  woven  round  his  name.  His  body 
produced  marvellous  cures ;  sailors  who  prayed  to  him 
in  storms  were  brought  by  him — his  crozier  used  as  a 
rudder  ! — safely  to  land.  Small  wonder  that  the  body 
of  the  saint  was  the  most  precious  of  the  relics  pos- 
sessed by  the  Northumbrian  Church.  When,  in  793, 
the  Danes  descended  on  Lindisfarne,  the  monks 
who  fled  before  them  carried  with  them  the  body  of 
St.  Cuthbert.  For  seven  years  they  bore  it  from  place 
to  place,  hunted  men,  hiding  in  forest  or  on  wild 
moorland — over  the  Border  to  Yorkshire,  Lancashire, 
Cumberland,  and  to  many  another  county,  leaving 


86  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

traces  of  their  journey  ings  in  churches  and  in  crosses 
bearing  the  saint's  name.  At  Mailros,  for  a  little, 
the  body  found  peace,  and  in  Marmion  we  are  given 
the  legend  of  how  it  reached  its  final  resting-place  at 
Durham : — 

'  O'er  northern  mountain,  marsh,  and  moor, 
From  sea  to  sea,  from  shore  to  shore, 
Seven  years  St.  Cuthbert's  corpse  they  bore. 
They  rested  them  in  fair  Melrose  ; 
But  though,  alive,  he  loved  it  well, 
Not  there  his  relics  might  repose ; 
For,  wondrous  tale  to  tell ! 
In  his  stone  coffin  forth  he  rides, 
A  ponderous  bark  for  river  tides, 
Yet  light  as  gossamer  it  glides 
Downward  to  Tillmouth  cell.' 

Under  the  magnificent  shelter  of  Durham  Cathedral, 
'  in  a  fair  and  sumptuous  shrine,'  he  lies.  The  monas- 
tery at  Lindisfarne  is  in  ruins,  but  he  who  plods 
across  the  wet  sand  between  it  and  the  mainland 
when  the  tide  is  low,  may  find  on  the  shore  the  curious 
fragments  of  fossilised  wood  that  are  known  as 
St.  Cuthbert's  beads,  a  sure  protection  against  the 
spirits  of  evil. 

And  where  the  white  sea-birds  still  swoop  and  scream, 
where  the  easterly  gales  blow  and  the  waves  thresh 
the  shore,  two  lighthouses  send  their  yellow  lights 
from  Fame  across  the  cold  North  Sea.  Fit  monu- 
ments they  for  Cuthbert,  whose  life  shone  brightly 
in  a  dark  age,  and  who  guided  shorewards  many  a 
storm-tossed  soul. 


BORDER  WIZARDS  87 


CHAPTER  IV 

BORDER   WIZARDS 

They  have  sought  him  high,  they  have  sought  him  low, 
They  have  sought  him  over  down  and  lea ; 
They  have  found  him  by  the  milk-white  thorn 
That  guards  the  gate  o'  Faerie. 

KIPLING. 

THE  old  order  changeth,  and  bitter  must  it  ever  be 
for  him  who  lives  on  when  old  friends,  old  laws,  old 
beliefs  lie  in  their  quickly  forgotten  graves. 

There  had  been  a  long  fight  in  Britain  between 
Paganism  and  Christianity.  Gradually  the  Druids 
of  the  early  days  had  lost  their  footing.  Gradually 
their  old  mystic  religion,  with  its  rites  of  mingled 
beauty  and  hideousness,  had  had  to  give  way  before 
the  worship  of  those  who  knelt  under  the  holy  Cross. 
To  the  teaching  of  the  earlier  Christian  missionaries 
they  were  able  in  part  to  conform.  Their  Pantheism 
was  not  necessarily  in  opposition  to  the  simple  faith 
of  the  priests  who  worshipped  Christ  as  their  Redeemer, 
but  who  saw  God  in  everything. 

'  The  sun,  the  moon,  the  stars,  the  seas,  the  hills,  and  the  plains — 
Are  not  these,  O  Soul,  the  Vision  of  Him  who  reigns  ?' 


88  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

But  when  others  came — others  less  simple,  less 
well  versed  in  the  teaching  of  Christ  and  His  disciples, 
much  wiser  as  regarded  the  dogmas  and  the  forms  of 
Church  discipline  and  the  knowledge  that  is  attained 
in  the  cells  of  monasteries,  and  not  from  the  study  of 
Humanity  and  of  Nature,  the  Druids'  day  was  over 
indeed. 

In  angry  protest,  the  old  Pagan  spirit  of  passionate 
revolt  against  the  inevitable  cries  out  in  one  of  the 
songs  of  Taliessen,  the  so-called  Christian  : — 

'  Monks  congregate  like  dogs  in  a  kennel, 

From  contact  with  their  superiors  they  acquire  knowledge.  .  .  . 
They  know  not  when  the  deep  night  and  dawn  divide, 
Nor  what  is  the  course  of  the  wind,  or  who  agitates  it, 
In  what  place  it  dies  away,  or  in  what  land  it  roars.  .  . 
I  will  pray  to  the  Lord,  the  great  supreme, 
That  I  be  not  wretched.     Christ  be  my  portion.' 

We  have  read  that  at  Ardderyd,  in  the  Liddel  valley, 
the  Christians  inflicted  on  the  Pagans  a  terrible  defeat. 
It  was  fitting  that  the  battle  of  Ardderyd  should  date 
the  fall  of  the  greatest  of  the  Druids.  Unhappily 
for  him,  Merlin  was  not  one  of  the  '  seven  score 
generous  ones  '  who,  in  the  Wood  of  Caledon,  joined 
the  shades.  A  harder  fate  was  his.  For  many  a  long 
day  and  longer  night  had  Merlin  to  dree  his  weird  in 
the  Wood  of  Caledon,  broken  in  heart,  half-crazed, 
enduring  the  anguish  of  those  who,  yet  living,  fall 
into  the  pit  of  Fortune's  Wheel. 


BORDER  WIZARDS  89 

The  Merlin  who  has  been  handed  down  to  us  by 
tradition  is  barely  mortal.  He  is  the  terrifying 
magician  of  fairy  tale,  half  man,  half  spirit — the 
enchanter  Merlin  that  Tennyson  has  given  to  the 
world — the  fearful,  uncomprehended  power  of  evil 
that  makes  the  hearts  of  children  beat  fast  as  they 
pass  through  the  woods  when  evening  shadows  are 
lengthening;  the  half-believed-in  force  that  gives 
a  horror  to  the  sough  of  the  wind  in  lonely  places 
when  night  falls. 

But  the  real  Merlin,  as  far  as  one  is  able  to  grasp 
him,  was,  in  all  probability,  the  last  of  the  Druids.  A 
bard  he  undoubtedly  was,  for  he  has  left  his  record  in 
the  Black  Book  of  Caermarihen ;  and  he  was  also, 
presumably,  a  priest.  And  with  these  mighty  weapons 
of  religion  and  of  song  in  his  hands  he  tried  to  guide 
the  fate  of  nations.  It  would  seem  as  though  he  had 
urged  the  Pagan  leader  of  the  host  at  Ardderyd  to 
go  forth  to  battle.  It  was  to  be  a  glorious  victory. 
Once  again  the  Druids  were  to  be  lords  of  all  the  land, 
the  new  gods  of  the  peoples  that  they  hated  were  to 
be  cast  away.  But  instead  of  victory  came  dire 
defeat.  The  king  was  slain  ;  slain,  too,  was  Merlin's 
nephew,  the  son  of  the  sister  that  he  so  dearly  loved — 
she  who  was  so  fair  that  her  name  meant '  The  Dawn.' 
From  the  battlefield  fled  Merlin,  his  punishment  the 
fact  that  he  still  lived.  On,  on,  on  he  went,  through 
the  dark  woods  that  covered  hill  and  moorland,  the 


90  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

moan  of  the  Border  rivers  telling  him  only  of  death, 
bloody  death,  shameful  defeat  and  disaster,  of  horrors 
for  which  he  must  have  held  himself  to  blame. 

'  Death  takes  all  away,  why  does  he  not  visit  me  ?  ' 
was  his  bitter  cry. 

Little  wonder  that  people  came  to  fear  the  man 
who  was  mad  with  shame,  remorse,  and  grief.  For 
fifty  years  Merlin  lived  on,  feared  by  the  folk  of  those 
wilds  of  Upper  Tweeddale,  on  whose  moors  the  snow 
in  winter  lies  deep,  and  where  the  burns  that  rise  on 
the  lonely  hills  can  still  sing  the  songs  of  solitude. 
Hazel,  birch,  and  rowan  clothed  the  hillsides  then, 
but  it  was  by  another  tree  that  blossomed  for  him 
when  his  life  and  his  happiness  were  at  their  springtide 
that  Merlin's  memory  was  haunted. 

'  Sweet  apple-tree  that  grows  by  the  river  ! 
Whereof  the  keeper  shall  not  thrive  on  the  fruit. 
Before  madness  came  on  me,  I  used  to  be  round  its  stem 
With  a  fair,  playful  maid,  matchless  in  beauty. 
Ten  years  and  forty,  the  sport  of  the  lawless, 
Among  spirits  of  darkness  have  I  wandered. 

In  the  battle  of  Ardderyd,  golden  were  my  torques, 

Though  now  I  am  despised  by  her  who  is  of  the  colour  of  swans. 

Sweet  apple-tree  that  grows  in  the  glen.' 

The  Christian  victor  at  Arderydd  had  appointed 
St.  Kentigern  his  bishop,  and  in  his  journeyings  in 
the  Wood  of  Caledon,  where  the  Tweed  flows  past 


BORDER  WIZARDS  91 

Drummelzier,  Kentigern  and  Merlin  met — the  apostle 
of  the  new  faith  and  the  priest  of  the  old. 

The  saint  was  kneeling  in  prayer  when  there  stood 
before  him  a  figure  that  he  might  well  have  taken  as  a 
messenger  from  the  Evil  One.  Gaunt,  haggard,  a 
soul  in  Purgatory  looking  through  his  eyes,  '  with 
hair  growing  so  grime,  fearful  to  see,'  Merlin  con- 
fronted the  man  whom  he  hated. 

4  Who  are  ye  ?  and  whence  do  ye  come  ?  '  boldly 
asked  the  saint. 

To  him  answered  Merlin  :  '  Once  was  I  the  prophet 
of  a  king,  Merlin  my  name.  Now  am  I  in  solitude 
enduring  privations  ...  for  I  was  the  cause  of  the 
slaughter  of  all  those  who  fell  in  the  battle  of  Ard- 
deryd.' 

But  no  solace  could  Kentigern  give  to  the  soul  that 
sought  rest,  and  soon  the  wild  figure  was  lost  again  in 
the  shadow  of  the  woods. 

The  end  came  at  last.  And,  if  tradition  does  not 
err,  it  came  with  all  the  cruel  brutality  that  was  the 
one  thing  awanting  to  fill  the  Druid  poet's  heart 
with  furious  horror,  shame,  and  agony.  Meldred, 
Lord  of  Drummelzier,  had  many  shepherds  who  feared 
Merlin  as  a  sorcerer  who  might  work  evil  on  them  and 
on  their  flocks.  Fear  brought  hatred,  and  with 
stones  and  clubs  they  did  him  to  death,  then  cast  him, 
a  stake  driven  through  his  body,  into  the  Tweed. 

4  Depuis  1'antique  Orphee  jusqu'a  1'Orphee  celtique, 


92  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

combien  d'autres  sont  morts  de  m&ne !  C'est  la 
lutte  6ternelle  de  la  force  brutale  centre  1'intelligence 
douce  et  sublime  inspired  du  ciel,  dont  le  royaume 
n'est  pas  de  ce  monde.'  So  says  the  Vicomte  de  la 
Villemarque*. 

On  the  bank  of  the  Powsail  Burn,  the  stream  of  the 
willows,  near  Drummelzier,  a  green  mound  is  pointed 
out  as  marking  Merlin's  grave  ;  an  aged  thorn  his 
only  monument,  the  murmur  of  water  his  dirge. 
And  surely  the  Powsail  Burn  ought  still  to  echo 
across  the  ages  the  moans  of  the  broken  heart  of  him 
who  was  once  the  guide  of  kings. 

One  of  the  prophecies  attributed  to  Merlin  was 
delivered  shortly  before  the  Border  herds  had  shame- 
fully put  him  to  a  shameful  death. 

'  The  flesh  upon  me  shall  be  rotten  before  a  month 
shall  have  passed,'  he  said,  l  but  my  spirit  will  not 
be  wanting  to  all  those  who  come  to  me  here.' 

And  still  the  spirit  of  poetry,  the  passion  for  the 
beauties  and  mysteries  of  Nature,  must  surely  haunt 
those  who  love  the  lonely  lochs,  the  rivers,  and  the 
streams  of  what  was  once  the  Wood  of  Caledon. 

A  prophecy  dating  back  one  knows  not  how  far, 
has  the  grave  of  Merlin  for  its  subject : — 

'  When  Tweed  and  Pausyl  join  at  Merlin's  grave, 
Scotland  and  England  shall  one  monarch  have.' 

And,  on  the  day  that  James  vi.  was  crowned, 
Tweed,  in  spate,  overflowed  her  banks,  and  merged 


BORDER  WIZARDS  93 

her  waters  with  the  Powsail  as  it  coursed  past  the 
Wizard's  thorn. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  days  of  Merlin  the  Bard  to 
those  of  the  next  Borderer  who  won  for  himself  the 
title  of  '  Wizard.' 

More  than  five  hundred  years  had  come  and  gone. 
Northumbria's  greatness  had  waxed  and  waned. 
Across  the  cold  North  Sea  had  come  more  of  the 
stormy  petrels  of  history,  bringing  into  an  already 
turbulent  land,  harassed  by  wars  between  Picts  and 
Scots,  Angles  and  Britons  and  Romano-Britons,  a  new 
element  of  dispeace  and  of  bloodshed.  Up  the  rivers 
and  firths  of  the  eastern  coast  stole  the  black-prowed 
craft  of  Danish  pirates.  They  were  men  who  seemed 
to  possess  few  of  the  virtues  of  the  *  Winged  Hats.' 
Mere  packs  of  savage  Scandinavian  wolves  were  they  ; 
bloodthirsty  buccaneers,  seeking  at  first,  not  the 
conquest  of  new  lands,  but  lusting  only  for  plunder, 
murder,  and  rapine.  As  time  went  on,  they  came 
in  larger  numbers,  until  in  793,  so  writes  Simeon  of 
Durham,  '  the  Pagans  of  the  north  came  with  a  naval 
armament  to  Britain,  like  stinging  hornets,  and  over- 
ran the  country  in  all  directions,  tearing  and  killing 
not  only  sheep  and  oxen,  but  priests  and  Levites, 
and  choirs  of  monks  and  nuns.  They  came  to  the 
church  at  Lindisfarne  and  laid  all  waste  with  dreadful 
havoc,  trod  with  unhallowed  feet  the  holy  places, 
dug  up  the  altars,  and  carried  off  the  treasures  of 


94  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

the  holy  church.  Some  of  the  brethren  they  killed, 
some  they  carried  off  in  chains,  many  they  cast  out 
naked  and  loaded  with  insults,  and  some  they  drowned 
in  the  sea.' 

Not  for  long  did  the  Danes  arrive  in  flying  squadrons 
of  two  or  three,  bent  merely  on  plunder,  greedy  sea- 
birds  to  be  beaten  off  by  the  peoples  of  the  land. 
Under  their  flags,  that  bore  the  black  raven — ominous 
of  their  own  spirit,  their  greed  for  prey — they  swarmed 
into  the  country  in  compact  hosts.  And  North- 
umbria,  weakened  by  anarchy  and  rebellion,  could 
not  long  withstand  the  assaults  of  the  Northmen 
who  came  not  merely  to  harry  the  hamlets  on  the  fringe 
of  Northumberland,  Berwick,  and  the  Lothians, 
but  to  settle  on  the  land  of  those  that  they  slew. 
Settle  they  did,  and  to  this  day  one  fancies  that 
traces  of  the  fearlessness,  the  lawlessness,  and  other 
of  the  characteristics  of  the  followers  of  Eric  of  the 
Bloody  Axe — significant  title  ! — and  men  of  his  kind, 
are  to  be  seen  in  the  fisher-folk  who  now  populate 
the  rocky  line  of  coast  that  was  once  so  often  harried 
by  the  pirates  of  the  North  Sea. 

For  one  century  after  another  the  Border  country 
was  the  fighting  ground  of  Danes,  Scots,  Picts,  and 
Britons.  Kings  and  kinglets  rose  and  fell,  fought 
and  died,  the  while  these  fiercely  antagonistic  peoples 
were  being  merged  into  the  Scottish  nation.  It  was 
not  until  1057  that  Malcolm  Ceannmore  began  his 


BORDER  WIZARDS  95 

reign  as  king  over  all  Scotland,  not  until  then  that 
the  Scottish  nation  found  itself. 

While  Edward  the  Confessor,  Harold,  William 
the  Conqueror,  and  William  Rufus  followed  each 
other  on  the  southern  throne  in  rapid  succession, 
Malcolm  Ceannmore,  a  Scoto-Pict,  reigned  in  Scotland. 
4  Ceannmore,5  or  Great-Head,  he  was  called  by  his 
Celtic  subjects,  and  a  great  head  indeed  was  that  of 
Malcolm.  Like  James  i.  in  later  days,  he  spent 
years  of  his  youth  at  the  English  Court,  and  during 
his  residence  as  an  exile  at  the  Court  of  Edward  the 
Confessor  he  was  able  to  see  for  himself  the  weak 
spots  in  the  constitution  and  the  defence  of  his  own 
land.  That  it  was  of  enormous  importance  that 
what  are  now  the  southern  counties  of  Scotland  should 
belong  to  the  king  who  reigned  as  far  north  as  the 
bleak  shores  of  Caithness  and  not  to  him  who  also 
owned  the  white  cliffs  of  Kent,  was  a  fact  that 
he  lost  no  time  in  acting  upon.  His  marriage  with 
the  beautiful  and  saintly  Saxon  princess  Margaret 
materially  strengthened  his  position,  for  the  Saxons 
were  with  him.  Only  once  did  he  go  on  a  punitive 
expedition  amongst  his  turbulent  subjects  of  the  north. 
All  his  energies  were  concentrated  in  gaining  for  his 
crown  an  extension  of  frontier,  in  driving  the  English 
far  south  of  the  Tweed.  As  far  south  as  York,  as  far 
west  as  Carlisle,  the  land  claimed  by  the  conqueror  was 
constantly  raided.  The  castles  of  Carlisle,  Durham, 


96  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Newcastle,  and  Norham  were  built  as  checks  for 
him  in  the  big  game  of  chess  that  he  played  with 
William  I.  of  England.  Many  a  luckless  pawn  was 
brought  to  Scotland  in  those  days.  Says  Simeon  of 
Durham,  writing  in  1070 :  '  Scotland  was  therefore 
filled  with  slaves  and  handmaids  of  the  English  race, 
so  that  even  to  this  day,  I  do  not  say  no  little  village, 
but  even  no  cottage  can  be  found  without  them.' 

*  Camerlach  '  was  the  name  given  by  the  Borderers 
to  these  prisoners  of  war  who  were  made  bondmen, 
from  their  constant  mournful  wailing  as  they  laboured 
in  the  fields. 

When  he  died  in  1093,  Ceannmore  had  the  proud 
record  not  only  of  being  unconquered  by  the  Norman 
conqueror,  but  of  having  so  successfully  carried  out 
his  design  for  the  welfare  of  his  kingdom,  that  its 
boundaries  of  Tweed,  Cheviots,  and  Solway  were 
practically  what  they  remain  to  this  day.  One  can 
but  hope  that  death,  that  came  on  a  great  king  by 
treachery,  was  too  swiftly  his  for  him  to  realise  that 
his  men  were  about  to  be  cut  in  pieces,  or  to  flee  in 
panic  before  an  English  host. 

Battle,  murder,  and  sudden  death  characterised 
the  reigns  of  the  six  kings  who  followed  Malcolm 
Ceannmore.  The  fluctuating  fortunes  of  the  Scottish 
monarchs  had  enabled  the  rulers  of  England  to  do 
much  in  stocking  the  Border  with  the  Norman  nobles 
whose  descendants  have  not  yet  entirely  given  place 


BORDER  WIZARDS  97 

to  the  families  of  successful  exponents  of  modem 
British  commerce. 

With  the  Normans  came  monastic  orders,  bringing 
education  for  the  Border  youth.  Schools  sprang  up  ; 
the  abbeys  supplied  teachers  trained  in  foreign  lands. 
The  young  Borderer  was  now  not  only  taught  to  handle 
a  horse  and  a  sword  as  soon  as  he  could  walk ;  book- 
learning  was  also  given  to  him. 

William  the  Lion  was  king,  when  one  born  on  the 
Border  attained  such  knowledge  that  men  feared  him 
for  it,  and  gave  to  Michael  Scot  the  title  of  '  Wizard.' 

Of  his  birthplace  there  are  the  usual  discrepant 
accounts,  but  that  he  was  not  a  Scot  of  Balwearie  in 
Fife  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  Balwearie 
family  did  not  come  into  existence  until  a  later  date. 
In  all  probability  he  was  born  somewhere  in  Upper 
Tweeddale — the  district  of  Merlin — which  was  the 
cradle  of  the  Scot  family.  Presumably  his  first  school 
was  the  famous  grammar  school  at  Roxburgh,  from 
whence  he  went  to  the  Cathedral  School  at  Durham, 
thence  to  Oxford.  From  Oxford,  athirst  for  know- 
ledge, he  went  on  to  Paris,  winning  there  the  dis- 
tinction of  being  called  '  Mathematicus  '  and  '  The 
Master.'  At  Paris  he  took  Holy  Orders,  for  custom 
commanded  that  the  *nan  who  in  those  days  sought 
for  wisdom  must  seek  it  in  the  garb  of  a  monk.  A 
knowledge  of  law  was  then  esteemed  a  most  valuable 
asset  for  those  in  orders,  so  to  the  famous  law  school 


98  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

at  Bologna  went  Michael  Scot,  already  a  master  of 
mathematics  and  theology.  His  scholarship  brought 
the  young  Borderer  into  high  places.  Far  from  the 
lochs  and  moors  and  the  uncertain  skies  of  his  own 
land,  we  find  him  in  the  year  1200  where  the  sun 
smiles  kindly  on  the  orange  and  lemon  groves  and  on 
the  blue  sea  of  Palermo,  tutor  to  Prince  Frederick, 
grandson  of  Barbarossa,  and  afterwards  the  Emperor 
Frederick  n.  His  pupil  was  later  known  as  '  The 
Wonder  of  the  World.'  '  In  thought  and  learning,' 
writes  a  great  historian,  '  he  was  far  above  the  age 
in  which  he  lived.'  How  much,  one  wonders,  did 
Frederick  owe  to  the  man  who  taught  him,  and  who 
composed  for  his  pupil's  use  a  handbook  on  astronomy 
and  a  treatise  on  physiognomy  ?  The  latter  marked  the 
termination,  for  the  time  being,  of  Scot's  connection 
with  Sicily,  for  it  was  a  wedding  present  to  the  young 
king,  and  with  the  wedding  his  tutorial  duties  came 
to  an  end.  His  years  in  Sicily  had  not  been  any 
more  barren  for  him  than  for  his  pupil.  He  had 
learned  Arabic  and  Greek  in  the  island  where  even 
now  we  are  able  to  bridge  over  the  centuries  and  look 
on  Moors  as  swarthy,  on  Greeks  as  classically  beautiful 
as  those  whom  Michael  the  Wizard  knew.  A  school 
of  translators  from  the  Arabic  existed  in  Toledo,  and 
to  Spain  Scot  therefore  bent  his  course.  To  his  late 
pupil,  who  had  a  royal  menagerie,  he  dedicated 
his  first  translated  work,  an  abridged  edition  of  the 


BORDER  WIZARDS  99 

Arabic  version  of  Aristotle's  Treatise  on  Animals. 
The  logical  side  of  Aristotle  was  that  which  conven- 
tion demanded  that  the  student  of  those  times  should 
study.  But  convention,  intellectual  or  otherwise, 
was  unknown  to  Scot.  His  works  show  us  that  it 
was  the  scientific,  moral,  and  psychological  sides  of 
Aristotle — the  sides  unknown  to  other  western 
students — that  attracted  him.  Averroes  of  Cordova, 
another  Arab  sage,  whose  works  were  held  to  be  full 
of  speculations  so  daringly  heterodox  that  Moslems 
persecuted  him  and  Christians  denounced  him,  natur- 
ally drew  to  him  this  seeker  after  knowledge.  In  his 
spare  time  from  the  study  of  alchemy,  astronomy,  and 
of  medicine,  Scot  the  savant  made  a  translation  of  the 
works  of  Averroes.  The  translation  was  promptly 
censured  by  the  Church,  and  for  his  participation  in 
the  unhallowed  knowledge  of  his  friend  and  preceptor, 
Frederick  was  more  than  once  excommunicated. 
In  those  days  the  Moors  ranked  as  the  most  learned 
and  most  cultured  people  in  Europe.  To  them  we 
owe  our  modern  system  of  arithmetic,  and  from  them 
we  learned  the  elements  of  astronomy  and  of  chemistry. 
The  wise  men  then  nearly  all  came  from  the  east, 
and  from  his  residence  in  Spain  Scot  learned  much. 
As  Court  physician  and  astrologer,  he  returned  to 
Palermo,  and  either  the  power  of  his  royal  master  or 
of  his  own  learning  led  the  Pope,  Honorius  in.,  to 
overlook  his  excursions  into  realms  regarded  as  unholy 


100  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

by  Mother  Church,  and  himself  to  ask  the  English 
Primate,  Stephen  Langton,  to  give  the  soothsayer  of 
the  Sicilian  Court  a  British  archbishopric.  To  the 
archbishopric  of  Cashel  was  Michael  the  Wizard 
elected,  but  on  conscientious  scruples  he  declined  to 
act.  One  is  interested  to  find  that  the  '  scruples  ' 
were  his  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  Irish  tongue — good 
Border  Scots,  French,  Latin,  Greek,  Arabic,  and 
probably  a  fair  smattering  of  other  languages  being 
a  useless  quantity  in  dealing  with  the  wild  men  of 
Cashel.  It  was  not  long  after  his  ecclesiastical  prefer- 
ment that,  so  we  are  told,  to  Michael  Scot  '  the  veil 
of  the  future  seemed  to  be  lifted,'  and  this  intellectual 
Saul  was  also  found  amongst  the  prophets.  That 
he  fell  into  a  melancholy  about  the  time  that  this 
occurred  is  not  to  be  marvelled  at  if  the  list  of  calami- 
ties handed  down  to  us  as  his  prophecies  is  correct. 

'  Woe  to  thee,  Mantua  !  '  he  cries — 4  Woe  to  thee, 
Mantua,  filled  with  so  great  grief !  '  Did  he,  indeed, 
lift  the  veil  and  see  Mantua  the  Magnificent  as  it  now 
is  ? — a  melancholy  wreck  of  past  greatness,  a  haunting 
city,  the  grey  miasma  that  rises  from  the  reedy 
swamp  beside  it  clinging  round  the  mould-stained 
survivors  of  palaces  with  the  depressing  chill  of 
something  long  dead. 

The  downfall  of  Rome  he  also  foretold,  the  passing 
away  of  the  glories  of  Florence. 

In   1230   he   came  to   Scotland,   and   the   Border 


BORDER  WIZARDS  101 

legends  of  him  evidently  take  their  date  from  then. 
His  reputation  had  preceded  him.  He  had  meddled 
with  the  dark  arts.  He  had  sold  his  soul  to  the 
Devil. 

To  him,  in  his  native  Borderland,  came  the  Evil 
One,  to  claim  what  was  his  own.  But  three  works, 
the  Wizard  had  stipulated,  must  be  done  at  his  bidding 
ere  he  went  to  pay  his  bond.  First  of  all,  a  cauld 
must  be  made  across  the  swift-flowing  Tweed,  and  the 
cauld  at  Kelso  Mill  yet  withstands  the  winter  floods. 
Secondly,  the  Eildon  Hill  must  be  rent  into  three. 
And  in  three  peaks  it  stands,  4  Eildon's  triple  height,' 
a  monument  to  the  powers  of  darkness.  Last  of  all 
was  Satan  sent  to  weave  ropes  of  the  sea-sand,  and  the 
shifting  sands  of  Tweedmouth  show  now  with  what 
conscientiousness  the  Devil  still  seeks  to  fulfil  his 
part  of  an  unsanctified  bargain. 

Other  legends,  dear  to  the  rustic  mind,  tell  us  of  the 
demon  horse  '  Auld  Michael '  used  to  ride ;  and  Oak- 
wood  Tower,  the  peel  tower  up  Ettrick  that  still 
belongs  to  a  Scott — Lord  Polwarth,  head  of  the  clan — 
has  a  tale  of  its  own  regarding  Michael  Scot,  whose 
home  it  is  said  to  have  been. 

When  Scot  came  to  live  at  Oakwood,  so  the  story 
goes,  he  heard  much  of  the  fame  of  a  witch  who  lived 
at  Falsehope,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Ettrick  Water. 
Wishing  to  test  her  powers,  he  rode  one  day  to  False- 
hope,  and  leaving  his  horse  and  greyhounds  in  charge 


102  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

of  his  servant  entered  her  house.  The  woman  denied 
the  possession  of  any  supernatural  power  and  would 
answer  none  of  the  questions  put  to  her.  But  as 
Michael  rose  to  go  she  snatched  up  his  '  wand,'  which 
he  had  imprudently  laid  on  the  table,  and  struck  him 
with  it.  In  a  moment  his  form  had  changed,  and 
when  a  hare  crossed  the  threshold,  his  servant,  a  true 
Border  sportsman,  slipped  the  hounds  on  it  without 
hesitation.  A  desperate  course  did  Michael  run, 
till  at  length  he  found  sanctuary  under  his  own 
Tower  of  Oakwood,  and  was  there  able  to  reverse  the 
spell  and  resume  his  own  form. 

Autumn  came  round,  and  the  witch's  trick  was 
still  unavenged.  But  one  day  in  harvest  Michael 
rode  with  his  dogs  to  a  brae  above  Falsehope,  and 
sent  his  servant  to  ask  the  witch  for  some  food  for 
them.  The  woman  was  baking  bannocks  for  the 
harvesters  and  angrily  told  the  messenger  to  be  gone. 
Then,  according  to  his  master's  orders,  the  man  stuck 
over  the  door  a  paper  inscribed  with  cabalistic  signs, 
and  with  the  couplet — 

'  Maister  Michael  Scot's  man 
Sought  meat  and  gat  nane.' 

No  sooner  was  the  paper  posted  than  the  magic  began 
to  work.  Round  and  round  the  room  danced  the 
witch,  incessantly  chanting  the  rhyme — 

'  Maister  Michael  Scot's  man 
Sought  meat  and  gat  nane.' 


OAKWOOD    TOWER 


BORDER  WIZARDS  103 

But  the  spell  did  not  stop  at  the  witch.  The  dinner- 
hour  came,  and  the  farmer  sent  one  of  his  men  to 
the  house  to  fetch  food.  The  messenger  caught  the 
infection — a  hysterical  form  of  '  magic  '  not  unknown 
amongst  the  *  Shakers  '  of  to-day — straightway  began 
to  chant  and  joined  the  dance.  A  like  fate  overtook 
the  next  messenger,  and  the  next,  and  the  next,  until 
the  house  was  full  of  bewitched  dancers.  The  farmer 
came  himself,  last  of  all,  and  hearing  the  noisy  chant 
and  clatter  of  dancing  feet, '  keeked  '  in  at  the  window, 
canny  man,  so  as  to  run  no  unnecessary  risks.  The 
rhyme  told  him  the  name  of  the  warlock  who  was 
responsible,  and  he  went  hot-foot  to  Oakwood  and 
besought  Michael  Scot  to  reverse  the  spell. 

'  Go  home  to  your  house,'  said  the  Wizard,  '  enter 
it  backwards,  and  with  your  left  hand  take  the  paper 
from  over  the  door.' 

So  was  the  spell  removed  from  Falsehope  (cor- 
rectly Fauldshope,  the  glen  of  the  sheepfolds)  and 
its  witch-wife,  whose  fame  is  still  preserved  by  the 
summit  near  the  farm,  which  is  known  as  the  Witchie 
Hill. 

The  story  of  the  manner  of  Scot's  death  is  another 
generally  accepted  legend.  He  had  seen  so  far  into 
the  future,  says  tradition,  that  he  knew  that  his  end 
was  to  come  by  the  falling  of  a  stone.  For  his  pro- 
tection he  made  for  himself  a  light  helmet,  but  at 
Mass  one  day,  as  the  Host  was  elevated  and  the 


104  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

sacring  bell  rang,  Michael  raised  his  helmet,  and  a 
stone  in  the  roof  of  the  church,  loosened  by  the  bell's 
clang,  fell  and  killed  him  on  the  spot. 

What  was  in  reality  the  cause,  which  the  place  of 
his  death,  who  can  say  ?  but  his  grave  in  the  transept 
of  Melrose  Abbey  has  been  made  famous  by  another 
Scott,  the  Wizard  of  later  days. 

Cruel  are  the  pangs  of  the  Purgatory  dealt  by  Dante 
to  Michael  Scot.  He  is  one  of  those  who  walk  through 
a  dark  valley,  in  silence  weeping.  And  because  in 
the  body  he  and  his  fellows  have  tried  to  pierce  the 
dark  curtain  of  futurity,  to  attain  to  knowledge  too 
great  for  man,  their  heads  in  Purgatory  are  turned 
backwards  ;  they  can  only  look  at  what  is  past.  But 
of  a  surety,  Michael  Scot,  a  man  who  lived  so  many 
centuries  before  his  time,  must  even  on  earth  have 
endured  a  Purgatory.  He  who  had  given  his  life  to 
the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  who  had  striven  to  master 
the  sciences  after  which,  even  now,  though  centuries 
have  passed  away,  we  are  only  dimly  groping ;  he 
who  was  one  of  the  most  learned  men  of  his  age, 
was  looked  on  with  cold  suspicion  and  hostility  by 
fellow  scientists  like  Roger  Bacon  and  Albertus 
Magnus.  By  the  unlearned  world,  by  his  own  mother- 
country,  which  might  have  welcomed  him  as  a  most 
distinguished  and  worthy  son,  he  was  received  as 
an  evil  magician,  feared  and  hated  as  a  leaguer  with 
the  powers  of  darkness.  Truly  '  in  much  wisdom  is 


BORDER  WIZARDS  105 

much  grief ;  and  he  that  increaseth  knowledge  in- 
creaseth  sorrow.' 

To  the  thirteenth  century  Michael  Scot  belonged, 
and  to  the  same  century  belongs  yet  another  Border 
seer.  Merlin  the  Druid  and  Scot  the  Astrologer  have 
been  handed  down  to  us  with  superstitious  terrors 
surrounding  their  very  names.  Thomas  the  Rhymer 
has  met  with  a  more  kindly  fate  at  the  hands  of  tradi- 
tion. A  mysterious  prophet  he  may  be,  yet  he  comes 
to  us  with  all  the  grace  and  glamour  of  the  prince  of 
fairy  tale;  a  wonder-worker  because  he  is  a  worthy 
knight,  fit  to  grace  the  court  of  the  Fairy  Queen. 

When  the  Border  country,  from  Cheviots  to  Lammer- 
muirs,  was  still  mainly  dense  forest  of  oak  and  pine, 
rich  in  game,  the  Earl  of  Dunbar  had  a  hunting  seat 
at  Ercildoune.  The  sleepy  little  village  of  Earlston, 
by  the  side  of  the  Leader,  with  the  volcanic-looking 
Black  Hill  towering  above  it,  now  shows  no  trace  of 
the  castle  of  the  Earl.  But  there  may  yet  be  seen,  at 
the  west  end  of  the  village,  as  one  goes  on  one's  way 
towards  the  Eildons  and  the  Tweed,  an  ivy-covered 
fragment  of  a  ruined  tower.  There  once  dwelt 
Thomas  Learmonth  of  Ercildoune,  known  as  the 
Rhymer,  to  whom  the  Earl  of  Dunbar  was  friend  as 
well  as  feudal  lord. 

In  those  days  the  Border  was  rich  in  abbeys.  The 
little  hamlet  of  Ercildoune  was  within  easy  hail  of 
the  Austin  Canons  at  Jedburgh,  the  Tironensian 


106  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

monks  at  Kelso,  the  White  Canons  at  Dryburgh, 
and  the  Cistercians,  who  at  their  beautiful  abbey  of 
Melrose  had  practically  taken  the  place  of  the  colony 
of  monks  from  lona,  with  their  wooden  huts,  at  the 
Old  Melrose  that  is  now  no  more.  Old  Melrose  was 
then  nearly  moribund,  but  it  is  in  a  charter  relating 
to  it,  of  which  the  date  is  probably  1260-1270,  that  we 
find  the  name  of  Thomas  the  Rhymer.  A  Haig  of 
Bemersyde  had  rashly  agreed  to  pay  to  the  Chapel  of 
St.  Cuthbert  at  Old  Melrose  an  annual  fee  of  ten  salmon 
— '  five  fresh,  and  five  old  ' ;  but  apparently  the  fishing 
that  season  was  poor,  or  the  other  riparian  proprietors 
of  the  district  so  unfriendly  that  salmon-fishing  was 
too  violently  exciting  a  sport  for  one  of  the  house  of 
Haig.  Were  there  no  welcome  rains,  no  spates  to 
bring  the  fish  '  up  the  water  '  ?  For  the  flowers  were 
evidently  rich  and  plentiful,  and  the  bees  had  done 
their  duty  in  supplying  Petrus  de  Haga  with  a  suffi- 
ciency of  the  then  highly  negotiable  commodity  of 
wax.  To  pay  the  salmon,  says  de  Haga  in  this  remark- 
able document,  would  4  tend  to  the  disinheritance  of 
him  and  his  heirs,'  but '  half  a  stone  of  wax,  good  and 
saleable,'  he  was  willing  to  pay,  and  to  the  document 
4  Thomas  Rimor  of  Ercildun '  subscribed  himself 
as  a  witness. 

That  Thomas  of  Ercildoune  was  a  poet,  his  title  of 
'  Rimor  '  shows,  although  the  romance  of  Sir  Tristrem 
is  still  only  doubtfully  acknowledged  to  be  his  work. 


BORDER  WIZARDS  107 

It  is  not  as  a  poet,  however,  but  as  a  prophet,  that  his 
fame  has  come  down  to  us  through  the  centuries,  and 
how  his  gift  of  prophecy  came  to  him  legend  tells  us 
in  a  ballad  that  must  ever  have  for  its  readers  a 
fairy  charm : — 

'  True  Thomas  lay  on  Huntlie  bank ; 

A  ferlie  he  spied  wi'  his  e'e ; 
And  there  he  saw  a  ladye  bright 

Come  riding  down  by  the  Eildon  Tree. 

Her  shirt  was  o'  the  grass-green  silk, 

Her  mantle  o'  the  velvet  fyne ; 
At  ilka  tett  o'  her  horse's  mane, 

Hung  fifty  siller  bells  and  nine.' 

The  *  Eildon  Tree '  is  known  no  longer,  but  a  big 
stone  marks  the  spot  where  Thomas  lay,  and  still  the 
burn  that  trickles  past  the  foot  of  the  hill — a  favourite 
'  holding  up  '  place  for  highwaymen  in  days  of  old — 
is  known  as  '  The  Bogle  Burn.'  But  no  fearsome 
bogle  was  the  '  ferlie  '  that  True  Thomas  saw : — 

'  True  Thomas,  he  pull'd  aff  his  cap, 

And  louted  low  down  to  his  knee, 
"  All  hail,  thou  mighty  Queen  of  Heav'n  ! 
For  thy  peer  on  earth  I  never  did  see." 

"Oh  no,  oh  no,  Thomas,"  she  said, 
"  That  name  does  not  belang  to  me  ; 

I  am  but  the  Queen  of  fair  Klfland, 
That  am  hither  come  to  visit  thee. 

Harp  and  carp,  Thomas,"  she  said ; 

"  Harp  and  carp  along  wi'  me ; 
And  if  ye  dare  to  kiss  my  lips, 

Sure  of  your  bodie  I  will  be." 


108  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

"  Betide  me  weal,  betide  me  woe, 
That  weird  shall  never  daunton  me." 

Syne  he  has  kissed  her  rosy  lips, 
All  underneath  the  Eildon  Tree. 

"Now  ye  maun  go  wi'  me,"  she  said; 

"  True  Thomas,  ye  maun  go  wi'  me ; 
And  ye  maun  serve  me  seven  years, 

Thro'  weal  or  woe  as  chance  to  be." 

She  mounted  on  her  milk-white  steed  ; 

She  's  ta'en  True  Thomas  up  behind : 
And  aye,  whene'er  her  bridle  rung, 

The  steed  flew  swifter  than  the  wind. 

O  they  rade  on,  and  farther  on  ; 

The  steed  gaed  swifter  than  the  wind  ; 
Until  they  reached  a  desert  wide, 

And  living  land  was  left  behind. 

"  Light  down,  light  down  now,  true  Thomas, 
And  lean  your  head  upon  my  knee : 

Abide  and  rest  a  little  space, 

And  I  will  show  you  ferlies  three. 

O  see  ye  not  yon  narrow  road, 

So  thick  beset  with  thorns  and  briers  ? 

That  is  the  path  of  righteousness, 
Though  after  it  but  few  enquires. 

And  see  not  ye  that  braid,  braid  road, 
That  lies  across  the  lily  leven  ? 

That  is  the  path  of  wickedness, 

Though  some  call  it  the  road  to  heaven. 

And  see  not  ye  that  bonny  road 
That  winds  about  the  fernie  Brae  ? 

That  is  the  road  to  fair  Elfland, 

Where  thou  and  I  this  night  maun  gae. 


BORDER  WIZARDS  109 

But,  Thomas,  ye  maun  hold  your  tongue, 

Whatever  ye  may  hear  or  see ; 
For  if  you  speak  word  in  Elflyn  land 

Ye  '11  ne'er  get  back  to  your  ain  countrie." 

0  they  rade  on,  and  farther  on, 

And  they  waded  through  rivers  aboon  the  knee, 
And  they  saw  neither  sun  nor  moon, 
But  they  heard  the  roaring  of  the  sea. 

It  was  mirk,  mirk  night,  and  there  was  nae  stern  light, 
And  they  waded  through  red  blude  to  the  knee ; 

For  a'  the  blude  that 's  shed  on  earth, 

Rins  through  the  springs  o'  that  countrie. 

Syne  they  came  to  a  garden  green, 

And  she  pu'd  an  apple  frae  a  tree — 
"  Take  this  for  thy  wages,  true  Thomas ; 

It  will  give  thee  the  tongue  that  never  can  lee." 

tt  My  tongue  is  mine  ain,"  true  Thomas  said ; 
"  A  gudely  gift  ye  wad  gie  to  me ! 

1  neither  dought  to  buy  nor  sell, 

At  fair  or  tryst  where  I  may  be. 

I  dought  neither  speak  to  prince  or  peer, 

Nor  ask  of  grace  from  fair  ladye." 
"  Now  hold  thy  peace,"  the  lady  said, 

"For  as  I  say,  so  must  it  be." 

He  has  gotten  a  coat  of  the  even  cloth, 

And  a  pair  of  shoes  of  velvet  green ; 
And,  till  seven  years  were  gane  and  past, 

True  Thomas  on  earth  was  never  seen.' 

Seven  years  did  True  Thomas  spend  in  Fairyland, 
but 

'  When  seven  years  were  come  and  gane, 

The  sun  blinked  fair  on  pool  and  stream ; 
And  Thomas  lay  on  Huntlie  bank, 
Like  one  awakened  from  a  dream.' 


110  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

But  his  fairy  bride  had  given  him  a  right  royal 
gift.  Thomas,  the  Scottish  courtier,  had  quite  realised, 
when  he  remonstrated,  how  awkward  it  might  be  for 
hun  had  he  for  evermore  to  live  in  a  palace  of 
Truth.  But  the  '  tongue  that  never  can  lee  '  spoke 
not  merely  of  the  things  of  the  present,  but  spoke 
with  accuracy  of  the  future.  In  many  a  part  of 
Scotland,  even  as  far  as  the  Don,  where  Lord  Byron, 
as  a  boy,  feared  the  prophecy  that  the  'Auld  Brig 
o'  Don '  should  fall  when  the  only  son  of  a  mother 
should  ride  across  it  on  the  only  colt  of  a  mare,  his 
sayings  are  still  remembered.  Nor  was  he  a  mere 
minor  prophet,  predicting  the  petty  calamities  of  a 
small  district,  but  a  seer  who  foretold  the  fate  of  kings. 
According  to  old  chronicles,  on  the  day  before  the 
death  of  King  Alexander  in.,  Thomas  of  Ercildoune 
said  to  the  Earl  of  March  '  That  before  the  next  day 
at  noon,  such  a  tempest  should  blow,  as  Scotland  had 
not  felt  for  many  years  before.'  The  next  day  came, 
bright  and  clear,  and  the  Earl  mocked  Thomas  as  an 
impostor.  But  noon  brought  tidings  of  the  sudden 
death  of  the  king. 

4  This,'  said  Thomas,  *  is  the  tempest  I  foretold, 
and  so  it  shall  prove  to  Scotland.' 

*  Quhen  Alysandyr  oure  Kyng  was  dede 

•  **•*» 

Succour  Scotland,  and  remede 
That  stad  is  in  perplexyte.' 


BORDER  WIZARDS  111 

Many  a  local  belief  owes  its  origin  to  the  Rhymer, 
and  although  the  long  list  of  his  predictions,  current 
many  years  after  he  died,  are  in  all  probability  mere 
forgeries,  he  is  doubtless  responsible  for  many  others 
that  still  hold  good. 

'  At  Eildon  Tree  if  you  shall  be, 
A  brigg  owre  Tweed  you  there  may  see/ 

said  Thomas  in  days  when  no  bridge  crossed  the 
Tweed  at  Leader  foot.  Two  bridges,  indeed,  we  now 
may  see,  and  a  ferlie  for  True  Thomas  would  be  the 
long-limbed  red  structure  over  which  the  trains  to 
Berwick  wend  their  way. 

Best-known  of  all  his  prophecies,  perhaps,  is  that 
with  regard  to  the  Haigs  of  Bemersyde  : — 

'  Tyde  what  may  betyde, 
Haig  shall  be  Haig  of  Bemersyde.' 

Century  after  century  has  the  saying  held  good. 
A  Haig  fought  for  Wallace ;  a  successor  fell  at  Halidon 
Hill,  another  at  Otterburn.  At  Sauchieburn  another 
fought ;  yet  another  was  slain  at  Flodden ;  while  Robert 
Haig,  having  risked  his  neck  by  taking  part  in  many 
a  reiving  fray,  fought  gallantly  at  Ancrum  Moor.  Yet, 
as  one  laird  died,  another  was  always  ready  to  step 
into  his  shoes.  In  the  eighteenth  century  a  Haig  had 
twelve  daughters,  and  the  fair  fame  of  True  Thomas 
rocked  uncertainly.  But  when  the  twelve  daughters 


112  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

were  followed  by  a  son,  the  Rhymer  regained  his  sway 
as  unimpeachable  prophet  for  all  the  Borderland. 

His  prediction  regarding  his  own  line  was  one  of 
sadder  omen : — 

'  The  hare  sail  kittle  on  my  hearth  stane, 
And  there  will  never  be  a  Laird  Learmont  again.' 

One  is  inclined  to  wonder  in  what  degree  these 
prophecies  influenced  individuals,  families,  and  com- 
munities ?  How  far  is  it  possible  to  assist  Fate  ? 
That  some  of  them,  forged  or  not,  gave  heart  to 
many  a  Scottish  soldier  in  his  fight  for  freedom 
one  cannot  doubt,  for  Scotland's  ultimate  triumph 
and  power  were  subjects  for  many  of  them.  And 
when  we  are  fighting  or  even  working  for  issues  for 
which  the  portents  seem  wholly  favourable,  is  not  a 
successful  termination  already  almost  assured  ?  So, 
also,  when  the  omens  are  gloomy.  Men  assist  their 
own  evil  fate  by  their  own  superstitious  belief,  when 
least  they  know  it. 

When  and  how  Thomas  Learmonth,  the  Rhymer, 
Laird  of  Ercildoune,  met  his  death,  history  does  not 
record.  But  legend  tells  us  most  circumstantially 
how  the  end  came.  True  Thomas  had  not  said  fare- 
well for  ever  to  his  queen.  He  was  pledged  to  go 
back  to  her  when  she  willed  it,  and  once  he  had 
known  the  joys  of  the  land  of  fairy,  the  realm  of  true 
love  and  true  romance,  all  mundane  things  must 


BORDER  WIZARDS  113 

have  seemed  to  him  only  shadows  amongst  which 
he  had  to  pass  his  days  of  waiting  until  once  again 
he  could  kiss  those  'rosy  lips,  all  underneath  the 
Eildon  Tree.' 

He  was  feasting  some  guests  at  his  Tower  of  Ercil- 
doune,  when  a  page  ran  to  tell  him  that  a  hart  and  a 
hind  from  the  forest  were  walking  down  the  village 
street.  The  messengers  from  his  queen  had  come, 
and,  without  a  word,  True  Thomas  rose  and  followed 
them.  Up  the  heights  behind  the  hamlet  went  the 
hart  and  the  hind  and  he  whose  guides  they  were, 
until  the  watchers  saw  them  vanish  into  the  shades 
of  the  forest,  and  True  Thomas  was  lost  for  ever  to 
the  eyes  of  men. 

Not  much  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  there  were 
rumours  of  his  coming  again.  When  August  on  the 
Border  meant  a  noisy  Lammas  Fair  at  the  foot  of  the 
Melrose  Eildon,  a  jovial  Cumberland  horse-couper  with 
his  string  of  horses  met  with  a  strange  adventure  there. 
To  him  came  a  stately  old  man,  white  of  hair  and  beard, 
who  bought  a  big  black  horse  and  promised  that  a 
noble  sum  should  be  given  for  it  if  the  couper  met 
him  at  twelve  that  night  at  the  '  Lucken  Hare,'  a 
hillock  supposed  to  resemble  a  crouching  hare,  at  the 
foot  of  the  western  Eildon,  always  a  famous  meeting- 
place  for  witches  and  warlocks.  To  the  Lucken 
Hare,  at  midnight,  accordingly  went  the  couper,  who 
feared  nor  man  nor  devil.  The  old  man  had  kept 

H 


114  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

the  tryst,  but  in  order  to  get  the  money  he  said 
the  couper  must  come  with  him  farther  still.  Past 
the  lonely  fir  wood,  across  the  heather,  from  which 
the  grouse  rose  with  a  rush  and  a  whirr  of  wings,  and 
the  red  fox  dashed  away  for  a  safer  earth,  the  couper 
followed  his  guide,  till  they  stood  before  a  rock  in  the 
hillside.  Is  it  where  parsley  fern  and  bracken  grow 
amongst  the  shingly  '  clinkers  ' — relics  of  a  volcanic 
age — that  the  door  is  to  be  found  ?  or  have  whins 
and  heather  and  blaeberry  plants  hidden  it  for  ever 
from  our  too-curious  eyes  ?  It  opened  at  the  touch 
of  the  white-haired  man,  and  the  couper  followed 
him  into  a  vast  hall  where  were  many  war-horses 
ready  harnessed,  and,  by  the  side  of  each,  a  sleeping 
knight.  A  horn  hung  on  the  hall,  and,  with  orders 
not  to  touch  it,  the  guide  went  deeper  into  the  cave 
and  left  the  couper  to  watch  and  wonder.  But l  Thou 
shalt  not '  must  ever  mean  '  I  will '  to  the  undis- 
ciplined descendants  of  fighting  men.  No  sooner 
had  he  been  left  by  this  venerable  cavalry  remount 
agent  who  chose  his  cattle  at  Lammas  Fair,  than  the 
couper  blew  a  mighty  blast  on  the  horn.  And  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye  he  was  lying  among  the  heather 
on  the  hillside,  the  stars  above  him,  and  only  the 
crow  of  some  startled  grouse  to  serve  as  an  echo  of 
the  ringing  peal. 

Those  who  believed  the  tale  told  by  the  couper  in 
sober  morning  light,  knew  that  he  had  been  led  to  the 


BORDER  WIZARDS  115 

side  of  Arthur  and  his  knights  by  none  less  than 
Thomas  the  Rhymer,  unless,  indeed,  Merlin  or  Michael 
Scot  was  his  guide. 

In  their  cavern  under  the  Eildons  sleep  Arthur  and 
his  knights.  To  find  them  one  must  be  led  by  one 
who  has  left  the  light  of  common  day  for  the  fairy 
realms  of  poetry. 

So,  also,  lies  the  Romance  of  our  Border,  not  dead, 
but  sleeping ;  and  only  those  who,  like  Merlin  and 
True  Thomas,  have  the  poet's  clear  vision,  can 
guide  others  to  its  side.  To  us  who  blindly  grope 
and  stumble  in  the  smoky  atmosphere  of  everyday, 
twentieth-century,  commonplace  fact,  perhaps  once 
and  again  in  a  lifetime  may  be  granted  eyes  to  see 
the  glorious  vision,  and  a  heart  fearless  and  eager  to 
feel  the  joy  of  it. 

And  if  so  it  be,  then  we  must  thank  the  Fates, 
even  if  there  comes  a  next  day  when  we  return  to 
our  horse-couping  in  the  chill  of  the  grey  morning 
light. 


116  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   MONKS 

The  sacred  tapers'  lights  are  gone, 
Grey  moss  has  clad  the  altar  stoue, 
The  holy  image  is  o'erthrown, 

The  bell  has  ceased  to  toll, 
The  long-ribb'd  aisles  are  burst  and  shrunk, 
Departed  is  the  pious  monk, 

God's  blessing  on  his  soul ! 

SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 

No  good  that  comes  to  any  nation  is  without  its 
accompanying  evil,  nor  is  there  any  virtue  that  does 
not  own  its  attendant  vice. 

The  monks  brought  Christianity  to  Scotland,  and 
in  the  early  days  only  good  resulted  from  their  teaching. 
Later  on,  by  the  lapse  in  profligacy  of  those  who 
should  have  been  holy  men,  the  religious  houses 
which  had  been  loved  and  venerated  by  the  country- 
folk, came  to  be  hated  and  despised.  But  at  first  the 
sturdy  warriors  of  the  Border  owed  to  the  monks 
their  knowledge  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  very 
much  besides.  The  acquirement  of  the  gentle  arts, 
the  acquisition  of  scholarly  knowledge  and  of  the 
refinement  that  comes  from  mental  and  moral  dis- 


THE  MONKS  117 

cipline — in  a  word,  that  mysterious  quality  known 
as  culture — came  from  the  abbeys  whose  ruins  still 
speak  to  us  of  days  when  men  loved  art  for  art's  sake, 
and  when  the  best  work  that  artists  did  was  all  done 
for  God's  service. 

While  there  was  still  little  that  was  lovely  to  be 
found  in  the  castles  of  kings  or  of  knights,  the  monks 
had  begun  to  beautify  their  houses  of  prayer.  In 
628  Bishop  Biscop  founded  the  Benedictine  monas- 
teries of  Wearmouth  and  Jarrow,  and,  instead  of 
flimsy  wooden  buildings,  a  ready  prey  for  incendiary 
sea-rovers,  built  churches  of  stone.  Nor  was  he  con- 
tented with  the  untrained  work  of  the  Northumbrian 
artisans.  To  Gaul  he  sent  for  skilled  masons  and 
cunning  workers  in  glass,  and  from  Rome  brought 
rich  stores  of  books  and  paintings.  No  longer  was 
the  skill  of  the  Border  workman  limited  only  to  the 
fashioning  of  weapons  and  of  armour.  There  were 
other  flights  beautywards  for  his  soaring  ambition. 
In  the  Northumbrian  valleys  many  an  abbey  sprang 
up,  and  each  abbey  was  a  centre  for  art  and  for 
literature. 

At  Hexham,  called  by  the  Saxons  '  the  Town  on  the 
Holy  Stream,'  Bishop  Wilfrid  in  674  founded  a  church, 
a  magnificent  monument  for  a  prelate  who  may 
possibly  have  had  au  fond  a  little  desire  for  his  own 
aggrandisement,  as  well  as  a  great  desire  for  the  glory 
of  God.  Little  of  the  original  building  now  remains, 


118  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

but  in  that  most  beautiful  old  abbey  we  may  yet  see 
Bishop  Wilfrid's  c  Frith  Stool,'  the  stone  seat  where  he 
who  fled  from  his  enemies  might  ever  find  sanctuary. 
4  The  marble  chair  of  St.  Ambrose  at  Milan,  which 
Wilfrid  of  course  saw  and  studied,'  says  Bishop 
Browne,  '  has  as  the  only  ornament  down  the  front, 
exactly  what  the  frith  stool  has  on  the  top.'  In  1113 
the  Austin  Canons  raised  on  the  site  of  Wilfrid's 
church,  many  times  the  prey  of  Dane  and  of  Scot, 
the  abbey  which  is  now  the  pride  of  the  quiet  little 
Border  town  of  Hexham.  Its  '  Night  Stairs '  are 
the  finest  example  remaining  in  England.  By  them 
the  monks  descended  from  their  dormitories  to  the 
church  for  the  nocturnal  services,  and  a  door  from 
them  communicated  with  a  '  Sanctuary  Chamber ' 
where  a  sentry  monk  kept  constant  watch  for  fugitives 
who  sought  to  save  their  lives  under  the  mercifully 
protecting  wings  of  Mother  Church.  Better  than 
many  written  volumes  can  they  speak  to  us  of  the 
old,  old  days  of  simple  passions  and  of  simple  faith. 

The  reigns  of  the  three  sons  of  Malcolm  Ceannmore 
and  of  his  wife  St.  Margaret  saw  the  establishment 
of  many  a  monastery  on  either  side  of  the  Cheviots. 
By  Eadgar,  as  the  result  of  a  miraculous  vision — so 
legend  tells  us — Coldingham  was  refounded.  Donald 
Bane,  brother  of  Malcolm  Ceannmore,  had  usurped 
the  Scottish  throne,  and  Eadgar  and  his  army,  on 
their  way  against  him,  halted  at  Durham.  To 


THE  MONKS  119 

Eadgar,  in  the  night  watches,  appeared  the   holy 
Cuthbert. 

'  Victory  shall  be  thine,'  said  the  saint.  '  Procure 
my  banner  from  the  monastery,  have  it  borne  in  the 
van  of  thine  army  on  the  morrow,  and  before  it  the 
hosts  of  the  usurper  shall  flee  in  terror.'  The  saint 
was  obeyed ;  the  soldiery  of  Donald  Bane  treacher- 
ously deserted  him,  and  by  a  glorious  victory  Eadgar 
won  back  his  father's  crown. 

'  Coldynghame  than  founded  he, 
And  rychely  gert  it  dowyt  be 
Of  Saynt  Ebb  a  sweet  Hallow, 
Saynt  Cuthbert  thair  thaie  honowre  now.' 

To  Alexander,  Eadgar's  brother  and  successor, 
many  a  religious  house  owed  its  foundation ;  but  it  is 
David  i.,  that '  sair  sanct  for  the  crown,'  as  his  descen- 
dant called  him,  that  we  have  to  thank  for  most  of 
the  beautiful  abbeys  whose  ruins  give  an  extra 
nobility  and  dignity  to  the  Border,  and  help  to  fire 
the  imagination  of  the  most  prosaic  dweller  on  the 
plains  of  utilitarianism. 

Eadgar,  David's  brother,  calling  himself  Rex 
Scotorum,  had  addressed  his  subjects  as  *  Scots  and 
English.'  Alexander  was  less  the  king  and  friend  of 
Angles  and  of  Normans,  than  friend  and  king  of  the 
Celts.  But  David  I.  was  a  product  of  Norman 
civilisation.  He  had  spent  his  youth  in  England  at 
the  court  of  his  sister  Maud,  wife  of  Henry  I. — '  Mold 


120  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

the  god  quen,'  according  to  her  monument  at  Win- 
chester. David  '  had  been  freed  from  the  rust  of 
Scottish  barbarity,  and  polished  from  a  boy  from 
his  intercourse  and  familiarity  with  us,'  writes  William 
of  Malmesbury,  with  a  complacency  that  might  have 
furiously  annoyed  the  Celtic  party  of  that  time.  One 
wonders  if  it  was  love  for  the  country  where  he  spent 
his  days  before  he  entered  on  his  strenuous  life  as 
ruler  of  a  land  still  little  civilised,  or  if  it  was  affection 
for  his  sister  that  made  him  choose  to  be  known 
before  his  accession  to  the  throne,  not  as  brother  of 
William  I.  of  Scotland,  but  as  *  Earl  David,  brother 
of  the  Queen  of  the  English.'  Maybe  he  had  not  too 
much  cause  for  loving  the  wild  people  of  the  North, 
for  his  mother,  Queen  Margaret,  was  lying  dead  in 
Edinburgh  Castle  when  Donald  Bane  and  his  High- 
landers laid  siege  to  it.  Honour  to  a  dead  Saxon 
queen  her  sons  could  not  well  have  expected  to  be 
paid  by  Celts,  with  fighting  blood  aflame,  on  the  war 
trail  against  the  nation  that  they  hated.  And  when 
David  and  his  brothers,  protected  by  a  dense  easterly 
haar — a  chilly  pall,  grey  and  impenetrable,  covering 
up,  blotting  out,  everything, — stole  away  from  the 
castle's  west  postern,  bearing  the  body  of  one  of  the 
best  of  mothers  and  noblest  of  queens,  and  fled  to 
Dunfermline  to  find  sanctuary  for  it  there,  her  young 
son  must  have  longed  that  his  own  land  might  one 
day  know  some  of  the  gentleness  of  Norman  chivalry. 


THE  MONKS  121 

Matilda,  the  rich  young  widow  whom  David  married, 
daughter  and  heiress  of  the  Earl  of  Northumberland, 
had  been  the  wife  of  Simon  de  Senlis,  a  Norman 
knight.  Through  her,  David,  already  Earl  of  Cumbria 
and  Lothian,  gained  the  Earldom  of  Northampton, 
the  honour  of  Huntingdon,  and  laid  claim  to  the 
Earldom  of  Northumberland.  The  Wood  of  Caledon, 
though  its  limits  were  narrowing,  still  formed  a  large 
part  of  his  earldom.  It  was  known  now  as  '  The 
Forest  of  Selkirk '— '  My  Waste,'  Earl  David  called 
it — and  was  used  as  pasture-lands  for  the  Earl's 
flocks  and  herds,  and  as  a  preserve  quite  sufficiently 
regal  for  princes  to  hunt  in. 

'  Ettricke  Foreste  is  a  feir  foreste, 
In  it  grows  manie  a  semelie  trie ; 
There 's  hart  and  hynd,  and  dae  and  rae 
And  of  a'  wilde  bestis  grete  plentie/ 

Foresters,  shepherds,  and  neatherds  were  the  chief 
inhabitants  of  the  Forest,  but  near  a  little  shieling 
occupied  by  these  people,  some  Culdees  (religious 
offshoots  from  the  great  parent  stem  of  lona)  had 
planted  a  church — Scheleskirche,  the  Church  of  the 
Shieling.  One  knows  not  whether  the  little  kirk 
stood  where  Selkirk  now  is,  not  many  miles  from 
Galuschel — the  shieling  by  the  Gala — or  if  it  was 
*  bigged  '  up  the  valley  of  the  Ettrick  or  the  Yarrow. 
But,  from  the  woods  of  Tiron  in  Picardy,  Earl  David 
brought  thirteen  Benedictines  to  succeed  the  Culdees 


122  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

in  their  little  church  in  the  Forest.  They  were  not 
merely  monks,  priests  practising  Christian  doctrines, 
but  skilled  painters,  carvers,  carpenters,  blacksmiths, 
masons,  and  husbandmen,  who  were  able  to  teach 
many  things  to  the  subjects  of  their  patron.  To  his 
Tironensians,  David,  as  Earl,  and,  later,  as  King, 
granted  handsome  privileges.  To  them  belonged 
the  right  of  pasturing  their  flocks  in  the  Forest,  and 
they  were  given  not  merely  '  the  lands  of  Selkirk,' 
including  the  vales  of  Ettrick  and  Yarrow,  and  much 
besides,  but  the  *  towns  of  Midlem,  Bowden,  and 
Aldona  (Holydene),  the  whole  lordship  of  Melrose, 
lands  in  Sprouston  and  Berwick,  shares  in  fishing, 
parts  of  burgh  dues,  a  tenth  of  the  "  Kain  "  cheeses 
of  Galloway,  half  the  skins  of  his  kitchen,  a  tenth  of 
the  hides  of  the  stags  which  his  huntsmen  killed,  an 
equal  share  of  his  fishing  water  about  Selkirk,  and 
equal  right  to  his  woods  and  pastures.  In  England, 
land  at  Hardingstrop,  besides  the  mill  and  fields  near 
the  bridge  at  Northampton.'  This  munificent  endow- 
ment was  dedicated  by  David  for  evermore  to  the 
Abbey  of  Selkirk,  t  in  honour  of  St.  Mary,  and  of 
St.  John  the  Evangelist,  for  the  weal  of  his  own  soul, 
of  the  souls  of  his  father  and  mother,  brothers  and 
sisters,  and  all  his  ancestors.' 

The  Culdees  who  were  thus  superseded  by  the  black- 
robed  monks  of  Tiron,  had  fallen  into  lax  ways  since 
the  days  of  the  brotherhood  at  Hii.  They  were  rarely 


THE  MONKS  123 

celibates,  and  they  had  arrived  at  a  convenient 
method  of  providing  for  their  families  by  appropriating 
common  property  for  their  individual  use,  and  by 
having  a  hereditary  succession  of  priesthood.  Their 
irregularities  David  tried  in  vain  to  reform.  '  I  give 
to  the  canons  of  St.  Andrews  the  island  of  Loch  Leven,' 
says  one  of  his  charters,  *  that  they  may  there  institute 
their  order  of  canons ;  and  the  Culdees,  who  may  be 
found  there '  (the  Culdees  of  St.  Serf's,  these  were, 
proud  possessors  of  a  library  of  sixteen  volumes),  '  if 
they  please  to  live  regularly,  let  them  remain  in  peace 
under  the  canons  ;  but  if  any  of  them  resist  this  rule, 
I  will  and  command  that  they  be  turned  out  of  the 
island.' 

To  a  man  who  ruled  himself  as  well  as  did  David  i., 
the  irregularities  of  the  lapsed  followers  of  Columba 
must  have  been  detestable,  and  the  substitution  of 
cultured  men,  members  of  strict  monastic  bodies, 
for  the  loose-living  and  probably  little  educated 
priests,  was  the  kindest  thing  that  he  could  have 
done  for  his  subjects. 

Holyrood,  Melrose,  Dryburgh,  Jedburgh,  Kelso, 
Dundrennan,  Kynloss,  Newbattle,  and  Cambuskenneth 
were  founded  or  refounded  by  him.  At  Lesmahagow 
he  erected  a  priory ;  at  Berwick  a  convent  for  Cis- 
tercian nuns,  and  he  founded  the  episcopal  sees  of 
Ross  and  Dunkeld. 

Practically,  we  may  say,  he  treated  his  kingdom 


124  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

of  Scotland  as  a  mission-field,  and  supplied  to  the 
people  of  the  land  those  missionaries  in  his  opinion 
best  qualified  to  teach  Christianity  and  to  educate 
their  converts  in  all  the  arts  of  peace. 

To  St.  Bernard  he  showed  his  devotion  not  only 
by  bringing  drafts  of  his  followers  to  Scotland,  but 
by  pilgrimaging  to  France  to  see  the  saint.  A  monk  of 
Tiron  tells  us  how  the  Scottish  king  *  braved  the 
terrors  of  the  British  Sea '  because  of  his  4  ardent 
desire  to  see  the  man  of  God.'  But  he  reached  Tiron 
too  late.  St.  Bernard  was  dead,  and  all  that  King 
David  could  do  was  to  kneel  in  prayer  at  his  shrine. 
'  The  beld  l  of  all  his  kin,'  Wyntoun  the  chronicler 
styles  the  man  who  did  so  much  to  beautify  the 
Borderland  and  to  educate  its  people.  His  biographer, 
Aelred,  writes  of  him  with  a  hearty  affection  and  an 
enthusiasm  that  says  much.  *  I  have  seen  him,' 
says  the  abbot,  *  with  his  foot  in  the  stirrup,  going 
to  hunt,  at  the  prayer  of  a  poor  petitioner  leave  his 
horse,  return  into  the  hall,  give  up  his  purpose  for 
the  day,  and  kindly  and  patiently  hear  the  cause.' 
4  He  often  used  to  sit  at  the  door  of  the  palace,  hear 
the  causes  of  the  poor  and  old,  who  were  warned  upon 
certain  days,  as  he  came  into  each  district.'  '  If  it 
happened  that  a  priest  or  a  soldier,  or  a  monk,  rich 
or  poor,  foreigner  or  native,  merchant  or  rustic,  had 
audience  of  him,  he  conversed  so  condescendingly, 

1  Paragon. 


THE  MONKS  125 

and  gave  such  attention  to  the  affairs  of  each,  that 
each  thought  he  cared  only  for  him,  and  so  all  went 
away  happy  and  satisfied.' 

A  born  diplomatist,  evidently,  this  king  who  ruled 
at  a  time  when  diplomacy  was  a  weapon  unknown 
to  the  Picts  of  Galloway  and  to  the  other  Border  folk, 
who  knew  only  how  to  settle  differences  by  spear 
thrust  or  sword  play. 

'The  land,'  writes  his  panegyrist,  'which  was  un- 
cultivated and  barren,  he  has  made  productive  and 
fertile.  Thou,  Scotland,  formerly  the  beggar  from 
other  countries,  didst  bear  on  thy  own  hard  clod 
nothing  but  famine  to  thy  inhabitants  ;  now,  softer 
and  more  fertile  than  other  lands,  thou  relievest  the 
wants  of  neighbouring  countries  from  thy  abun- 
dance. He  it  was  who  adorned  thee  with  castles  and 
cities,  who  filled  thy  ports  with  merchandise,  and 
brought  the  riches  of  other  nations  to  mix  with  thine 
own.  It  was  he  who  changed  the  shaggy  cloaks  for 
costly  robes,  and  covered  thy  former  nakedness  with 
fine  linen  and  purple  ;  he  who  reformed  thy  barbarous 
manners  with  Christian  religion,  and  who  taught 
thy  priests  a  more  becoming  life  ! ' 

As  in  the  case  of  most  great  men,  other  biographers 
might  have  given  a  very  different  account  of  David 
as  king.  He  had  Norman  friends,  Norman  favourites. 
In  his  desire  to  Normanise  his  kingdom  the  claims  of 
his  Scottish  subjects  were  set  aside  with  a  high  hand. 


126  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

The  hearts  of  many  of  the  descendants  of  the  old 
peoples  north  of  the  Tweed  must  have  swelled  with 
bitterness  when  they  saw  the  richest  lands  given  to 
newcomers  from  Normandy,  the  foreign  monks  fatten- 
ing on  the  bounties  of  a  Scottish  king,  while  they 
themselves — of  the  same  blood  as  those  who  had 
resisted  the  Romans  and  fought  against  the  slayers 
from  across  the  Northern  sea — were  looked  on  as 
barbarians,  to  whom  the  royal  favours  of  civilisation 
and  Christianisation,  but  of  naught  else,  were  granted. 

That  David  was  a  sportsman  in  the  ordinary  accep- 
tation of  the  word,  if  not  in  a  wider  sense,  we  see  from 
the  old  charters  for  the  preservation  of  game  in  his 
Forest  of  Ettrick.  His  successors  in  the  ownership 
of  the  Forest  were  equally  stringent.  A  present  of 
game  from  the  Forest  was  a  royal  gift  that  was  then 
worth  the  having.  To  the  monks  of  Coldingham 
Robert  the  Bruce  granted  the  privilege  of  taking 
yearly  from  his  Selkirk  preserves  five  stags  for  cele- 
brating the  festival  of  St.  Cuthbert's  Translation. 
The  Forest,  so  says  tradition,  was  the  birthplace  of 
the  Bruce's  great-grandmother  ;  at  Holydene,  Isabel, 
daughter  of  David,  Earl  of  Huntingdon,  was  born, 
and  amongst  the  hoary  trees  of  the  old  deer-park 
there  many  a  king  may  have  hunted. 

In  1235  Roger  de  Avenel,  the  then  proprietor, 
defended  himself  against  the  sporting  instincts  of  the 
Forest  monks  by  reserving  for  himself  the  right  of 


THE  MONKS  127 

game — hart  and  hind,  boar  and  roe,  falcons  and 
tercels.  The  monks  were  not  allowed  to  hunt  with 
hounds  or  nets.  Traps  were  only  to  be  set  for  wolves, 
nor  were  they  allowed  to  disturb  the  eyries  or  to  take 
the  nests  of  hawks  or  of  falcons.  The  trees  in  which 
these  birds  had  once  built  were  to  be  held  sacred  until 
next  nesting  season  proved  whether  they  were  going 
to  build  there  again  or  no.  Until  the  reign  of  William 
the  Lion  no  buildings  save  wattled  shelters  for  the 
herds  were  permitted  throughout  the  length  of  the 
Forest.  There  was  then  granted  at  Whitelee  near 
Galashiels  a  site  for  a  byre  of  one  hundred  cows,  with 
a  shed  for  hay,  and  a  house  where  the  brethren  might 
have  a  fire.  Not  only  dairy  farmers  and  husbandmen 
were  these  Border  monks,  but  horsemen  and  breeders 
of  horses.  Before  he  went  to  the  Holy  Land  in  1247, 
Patrick,  Earl  of  Dunbar,  parted  with  his  stud  of 
brood  mares  in  Lauderdale  to  the  monks  of  Melrose, 
who  paid  him  the  sum  of  one  hundred  merks  sterling. 
For  thirteen  years  did  the  monks  of  Tiron  pursue 
their  labours  at  Scheleskirche,  but  in  1136,  when 
David  their  patron  had  donned  the  crown,  they 
abandoned  it  for  a  more  congenial  home.  There 
was  really  every  reason  why  they  should  leave 
Selkirk  for  '  the  place  which  is  called  Kelcho,'  as  the 
old  charter  has  it.  Selkirk  was  a  mere  clachan  in 
the  wilds  of  the  Forest.  At  Kelso,  by  the  fair  river 
Tweed,  the  royal  castle  of  Roxburgh  was  a  powerful 


128  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

sentry  to  guard  the  house  of  the  holy  men.  The 
population  there  must  have  exceeded  that  of  Selkirk 
in  numbers  and  very  greatly  have  differed  in  quality 
from  the  herds  and  foresters  of  Ettrick  and  Yarrow 
and  Minchmoor.  Moreover,  Kelso  was  much  more 
easy  of  access  for  men  of  rank  and  of  culture  and 
their  following.  A  waggon  road  ran  between  it  and 
Berwick,  then  a  flourishing  seaport  town.  The 
Abbeys  of  Melrose,  Jedburgh,  and  Dryburgh  were 
within  easy  hail.  It  was  practically  on  the  high 
road  to  Northumberland,  where  at  Blanchland,  Hex- 
ham,  Tynemouth,  Alnwick,  Brinkburn,  and  Lindis- 
farne  other  religious  houses  flourished,  and  helped 
to  spread  civilisation  and  education  amongst  the 
Border  people.  Speedily  did  the  Abbey  of  Kelso 
attain  ascendency  over  the  other  Scottish  monasteries. 
Ere  long  it  was  the  ecclesiastical  centre  of  Scotland ; 
its  abbot  ranked  highest  of  the  spiritual  lords  of 
Parliament,  and  was  granted  a  mitre  by  the  Pope. 
Yet  another  favour  bestowed  on  the  Abbey  by  His 
Holiness  was  the  right  of  excommunicating  by  name, 
on  Sundays  or  holidays,  with  ringing  of  bells  and 
extinguishing  of  candles,  all  ill-doers  and  enemies  of 
the  church  at  Kelso.  It  was  not  wise  for  even  the 
most  powerful  of  the  Norman  barons  to  offend  the 
monks  of  Kelso  in  those  days. 

As   the   noble   and   beautiful   structures   of   their 
rearing  dominated  the  landscape  of  the  Border,  so 


THE  MONKS  129 

did  the  monks  rule  the  people.  They  held  the  bulk 
of  the  Church  lands  in  their  own  hands,  and  so  were 
enabled  to  teach  the  meaning  of  agriculture  and  of 
good  husbandry  to  men  who  knew  much  less  of  the 
use  of  the  ploughshare  than  of  the  sword. 

'  The  monastery  kept  alive  the  flickering  light  of 
literature.  It  gathered  together  and  protected  the 
spirits  too  delicate  for  a  rough  season.  It  reared  up 
a  barrier  against  oppression,  and  taught  the  strong 
to  respect  the  meek  and  gentle.  The  monastery 
was  the  sphere  of  mind,  when  all  around  was  material 
and  gross.'  So  says  Mr.  Cosmo  Innes,  speaking  of 
times  when  the  monks  still  led  the  steps  of  a  wayward 
flock  into  the  paths  of  peace,  and  when  it  would  have 
been  a  hideous  injustice  to  look  within  the  cloister  walls 
for  all  the  fleshy  lusts  which  war  against  the  spirit. 

At  Jedburgh — Jedworth,  as  it  then  was — the  Austin 
Friars  from  the  Abbey  of  St.  Quentin  at  Beauvais 
held  rule.  The  habit  of  black  cassock,  white  rochet, 
and  black  cloak  and  hood  of  the  bearded  canons 
must  have  been  a  familiar  sight  to  the  many  French 
nobles  who  came  over  to  the  wedding  of  Yolande, 
daughter  of  the  Count  de  Dreux,  with  Alexander  in., 
King  of  Scots.  It  was  in  October  1285  that  the 
Abbey  was  gay  with  wedding  guests  when,  out  of  the 
unseen,  there  came  what  the  superstitious  percipients 
took  to  mean  a  warning  of  woe  and  disaster.  The 
wedding  had  been  celebrated  with  great  pomp.  The 


130  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

banquet  was  over,  and  the  evening  festivities  were  at 
their  height,  when  a  masque  which  had  been  arranged 
for  the  entertainment  of  the  royal  pair  and  their 
noble  guests  entered  the  hall.  Gorgeously  dressed 
revellers,  dancing  and  playing  on  musical  instruments, 
passed  in  gay  procession  before  King  Alexander  and 
his  beautiful  queen.  The  grey  walls  that  were  used 
to  look  down  on  black-robed  monks  saw  in  the  light 
of  the  many  tapers  what  must  have  looked  like  a 
brilliant  flower-garden.  But  behind  the  masquers 
followed  a  dark  shadow,  a  something  that  did  not  seem 
to  touch  with  living  feet  the  solid  earth.  Horror  fell 
on  the  company  as  they  looked  at  the  figure  that 
grimly  followed  each  measure  that  they  trod.  Some 
vowed  that  they  saw  a  skeleton  form  under  the  black 
robe,  a  grinning  skull,  and  all  believed  that  they  had 
watched  a  dance  of  death.  As  unaccountably  as  it 
had  appeared  the  spectre  vanished,  leaving  behind 
it  dire  gloom  and  foreboding.  Less  than  six  months 
later  there  were  many  who  recalled  it  when  news 
came  of  the  great  storm  that  had  fallen  upon  Scotland. 
King  Alexander  had  met  with  a  violent  death  on  the 
rocks  of  Fife ;  the  young  bride  of  Jedburgh  Abbey 
was  a  widow.  Death  that  came  as  a  wedding-guest 
had  claimed  his  own. 

In  1513  a  convent  of  Franciscans  was  established  in 
Jedburgh.  The  brothers  wore  a  grey  woollen  gown 
and  cowJ,  a  rope  for  girdle,  and  went  about  barefoot. 


THE  MONKS  131 

They  were  not  allowed  to  possess  any  property  save 
the  ground  whereon  their  house  stood,  nor  were  they 
permitted  by  their  austere  order  to  have  any  visible 
means  of  subsistence,  but  lived  on  the  charity  of 
others.  By  turns,  wallet  on  shoulder,  they  went 
through  the  town  and  round  the  Jed  valley,  begging 
the  daily  bread  of  themselves  and  their  brethren. 
'  The  Begging  Friars '  they  naturally  came  to  be  called. 
At  Melrose  a  body  of  Cistercians  from  Rievaulx 
in  Yorkshire  succeeded  the  brethren  from  lona, 
and  when  first  established  in  their  beautiful  abbey 
in  a  green  valley  of  the  Tweed,  their  rule,  in 
rigid  simplicity  of  form  of  worship  and  in  daily  life 
and  conduct,  could  scarcely  have  been  exceeded  by 
those  who  followed  the  guidance  of  Columba  himself. 
No  carved  work,  silver  or  gold,  or  painted  glass  was 
permitted  in  their  abbey.  Their  crosses  were  of  plain 
wood.  Pictures  were  banned,  and  although  they 
might  transcribe  the  works  of  others  if  they  pleased, 
original  literary  work  on  the  part  of  the  brethren 
was  discouraged.  Seven  times  within  twenty-four 
hours  did  they  perform  their  devotions.  Their  cloth- 
ing was  of  the  coarsest,  their  manual  labour  real 
drudgery.  Flesh  was  only  allowed  to  the  sick,  and 
even  fish,  eggs,  milk,  butter,  and  cheese  were  regarded 
as  dainties,  permissible  only  on  high  days  and  holidays. 
In  Lent  they  fasted  daily  until  six  in  the  evening.  In 
1246  Matthew,  an  abbot  who  previously  as  cellarer 


132  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

had  himself  suffered  from  Lenten  abstinence,  won  for 
himself  the  kind  regard  of  the  monks  by  allowing 
them  on  Fridays  in  Lent,  when  bread  and  water 
was  their  only  fare,  a  finer  sort  of  bread,  known  as 
pittance  bread.  In  later  days  a  charter  of  Robert  the 
Bruce  assigns  the  sum  of  £100,  to  be  drawn  from  the 
customs  of  Berwick,  Edinburgh,  or  Haddington,  to 
furnish  each  of  the  monks  of  Melrose  with  a  daily 
addition  to  their  commons  of  rice  boiled  with  milk, 
or  of  almonds,  or  peas,  to  be  called  '  The  King's  Mess.' 
Yet,  despite  their  own  scant  fare,  those  monks  of 
Melrose  and  the  other  Border  abbeys  were  famed  for 
their  hospitality.  No  traveller  was  turned  empty 
away.  To  others  whose  fasts  and  hard  labour  were 
ordained  by  hard  necessity  and  not  by  Cistercian 
rule,  the  monks  of  Melrose,  in  the  good  old  days, 
never  failed  in  charity. 

While  Waltheof,  son  of  the  Earl  of  Northampton 
and  stepson  of  David  I.,  was  abbot,  a  devastating 
famine  hung  over  Scotland.  To  the  monastery  at 
Melrose  the  starving  people  of  Tweedside  and  Liddes- 
dale  and  the  Lammermuirs  flocked,  seeking  bread. 
Four  thousand  in  all,  we  are  told,  came  to  Melrose 
and  built  huts  for  themselves  in  the  fields  and  woods 
near  the  Abbey,  believing  that  the  brethren  might, 
even  by  miracle,  supply  the  hungry  with  food.  But 
lean  years  had  taxed  to  their  uttermost  the  barns 
of  the  monks.  There  remained  to  them  barely  enough 


THE  MONKS  133 

corn  to  carry  them  on  until  harvest.  Oxen,  sheep, 
and  pigs  still  remained  to  them,  and  a  good  store  of 
butter  and  cheese — as  befitted  wise  husbandmen — 
but  were  they  to  sacrifice  all  they  had  in  order  to 
ration  a  starving  host,  starvation  must  yet  only  be 
delayed.  Then  it  was  that  the  miracle  happened. 
To  the  Abbey's  farm  at  Eildon  went  Waltheof  and 
Tyna  the  cellarer.  In  the  granary  lay  a  heap  of 
wheat.  With  his  staff  Waltheof  struck  it,  and 
prayed  for  a  blessing.  To  Gattonside,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  river,  they  went  next,  and  Waltheof 
blessed  the  rye  that  was  stored  there,  and  commanded 
that  daily  rations  of  it  and  of  the  wheat  should  be 
doled  out  to  the  starvation  camp  without  the  Abbey 
walls.  They  were  thus,  says  a  chronicler,  '  fed  con- 
tinually for  three  months  from  the  stores  the  Abbot 
had  blessed,  which  lasted  till  the  corn  in  the  fields 
was  ready  for  the  sickle.' 

They  were  other  times,  other  manners,  from  those 
that  originated  the  mocking  saying — 

'  The  monks  of  Melrose  made  good  kail 

On  Fridays  when  they  fasted. 
They  wanted  neither  beef  nor  ale 
As  long  as  their  neighbours'  lasted.' 

None  of  the  monks  of  the  new  Abbey,  even  in  the 
early  days  of  Cistercian  asceticism,  could  have  attained 
quite  to  the  rigorous  self -crucifixion  of  a  holy  man  who 
lived  at  Old  Melrose  in  the  closing  years  of  the  seventh 


134  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

century.  Drythelm  had,  in  a  trance,  when  his  friends 
believed  him  dead,  passed  through  a  Purgatory  worthy 
of  Dante  himself.  The  '  clear  dream  and  solemn  vision ' 
revolutionised  his  life.  He  gave  up  the  world,  retired 
to  Melrose,  and  there,  in  a  cell  apart  from  the  other 
monks,  sought  to  purify  his  soul  by  most  cruelly 
mortifying  the  flesh.  Day  in,  day  out,  summer  and 
winter,  the  visionary  would  plunge  into  the  Tweed, 
regardless  of  autumn  spate  and  of  winter  ice,  and 
there  recite  psalms  and  prayers.  He  never  undressed, 
and  his  garments  were  allowed  to  dry  on  him.  To 
wondering  monks  who  asked  how  he  was  able  to  endure 
the  bitter  chill,  he  would  make  reply — 4  Elsewhere 
have  I  witnessed  greater  cold  and  pain.'  And  they 
would  marvel  reverently,  listening  as  to  one  risen 
from  the  dead. 

Whether  popular  legend  of  later  days  was  founded 
on  the  tales  of  Drythelm  the  monk,  it  is  hard  to  say. 
But  there  is  a  tale  of  a  nameless  monk  of  Old  Melrose 
that  is  better  known  to  the  country  people  than  is 
the  story  of  the  holy  ascetic. 

A  young  monk,  so  the  story  goes,  came  to  love  a 
lady  of  the  house  of  Bemersyde,  and  with  her  fell 
into  sin.  The  matter  came  to  the  ears  of  his  spiritual 
superiors.  The  lady  mysteriously  disappeared,  and 
one  of  the  penances  inflicted  on  the  erring  brother 
was  that  he  must,  like  St.  Drythelm,  daily  plunge 
into  a  pool  in  the  Tweed,  below  the  monastery,  known 


THE  MONKS  135 

still  as  the  Haly  Wheel  (i.e.  Holy  Pool,  from  wiel,  an 
eddy).  Never  once  did  the  monk  fail  to  pay  the 
penalty  of  his  unsanctified  love,  and  never,  through 
all  the  years,  did  he  speak  to  living  man  of  the  reason 
of  his  punishment.  When  death  had  ended  his  living 
purgatory,  the  Haly  Wheel  was  haunted  not  by  a 
gaunt  and  haggard  monk,  but  by  the  lady  who  shared 
his  guilt.  He  who  goes  at  midnight,  when  Tweed  is 
running  high,  when  black  clouds  scud  across  the 
moon's  pale  face,  and  stands  near  the  Haly  Wheel, 
may  hear  the  scream  of  a  drowning  woman  rise 
above  the  rush  and  moan  of  the  water.  Out  of  the 
pool  there  then  arises  the  white  figure  of  a  lady,  and 
the  waters  divide  to  let  her  pass.  One  huge  wave 
rolls  towards  Old  Melrose,  another  towards  the  heights 
of  Bemersyde.  But  neither  place  is  reached  by  the 
luckless  lady,  who,  with  a  despairing  cry,  sinks  again 
into  the  darkness  whence  she  came.  The  waves  fall 
back,  the  water  in  the  eddy  swirls  round  once  more, 
and  Tweed  flows  on — wan  water  that  has  seen  so 
much  of  tragedy,  that  has  reflected  so  many  secrets 
of  passion  and  of  crime. 

The  wicked  priest  has  always  been  a  favourite 
villain  of  fiction  and  of  legend,  and  lone  St.  Mary's 
also  owns  a  story  of  a  sinful  monk — 

'  That  Wizard  Priest,  whose  bones  are  thrust 
From  company  of  holy  dust, 
On  which  no  sunbeam  ever  shines.' 


136  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

'  St.  Mary  of  the  Lowes,'  or  '  St.  Mary  of  the  Forest,' 
was  the  name  by  which  was  known  the  chapel  standing 
high  up  on  the  hillside  above  St.  Mary's  Loch.  Surely 
never  anything  but  lonely  can  it  have  been,  even  in 
the  days  when  Ettrick  Forest  echoed  back  the  sound 
of  the  huntsman's  horn,  or  the  battle-cries  of  Border 
foemen.  It  was  a  dependency  of  Dryburgh.  Many 
a  time  must  white  monks  have  toiled  up  the  rough 
path  between  bracken  and  heather  to  the  little  church 
whose  bell  rang  across  the  water  of  St.  Mary's  and  the 
Loch  of  the  Lowes. 

Some  four  hundred  yards  beyond  the  scarcely 
distinguishable  marks  of  the  demolished  chapel, 
and  outside  the  little  graveyard,  is  a  mound  known  as 
4  Binram's  Corse.'  There  Hogg  places  the  grave  of 
'  Mess  John,'  and  popular  tradition  has  it  that  the 
mound  was  raised  over  the  body  of  a  necromancing 
priest  who  died  a  violent  death. 

The  last  light  on  the  altar  went  out  long,  long  ago  ; 
long  years  ago  was  the  last  Mass  sung.  There  is 
scarce  a  trace  left  of  the  chapel.  The  whaup  wails 
over  a  deserted  graveyard.  The  winds  from  Minch- 
moor  sweep  down  the  lochs  across  the  vanished  chapel 
of  St.  Mary  of  the  Lowes. 

'  St.  Mary's  Loch  lies  shimmering  still, 

But  St.  Mary's  Kirk  bell 's  lang  dune  ringing ; 
There 's  naething  now  but  the  gravestane  hill 
To  tell  o'  a'  their  loud  psalm-singing.' 


LONE    ST.    MARYS 


sound 
ierix 

Wfl; 


THE  MONKS  137 

Most  beautiful  of  all  the  beautiful  sites  where  the 
monks  came  to  hold  their  sway,  was  that  of  the 
Monastery  of  Dryburgh.  Its  name  is  supposed  to 
have  come  from  the  Celtic  Darach  Brtuich,  '  the  bank 
of  the  sacred  grove  of  oaks,'  or  *  the  settlement  of 
the  Druids.'  The  Druids  had  been  superseded  by 
the  brethren  from  lona,  and  they  in  their  turn,  in 
the  reign  of  David  i.,  gave  place  to  a  band  of  Premon- 
stratensians,  or  White  Canons,  from  the  Abbey  of 
Alnwick.  The  Tweed  sweeps  round  the  lands  of 
Dryburgh,  forming  a  peninsula,  and  those  of  the  white- 
cloaked  monks  with  their  square  caps  of  white  felt, 
who  had  come  direct  from  France,  must  have  been 
reminded  of  their  monastery  in  fair  Picardy  as  they 
laboured  in  the  fertile  hay-fields  and  orchards  down 
by  the  river.  Salmon  there  were  in  plenty,  trout  for 
the  catching,  and  eels,  too,  if  one  may  judge  from 
one's  luck  in  later  times,  in  muddy  water  near  the 
Abbey  after  a  spate.  At  first  the  Premonstratensians 
of  Dryburgh  were  a  poor  body,  and  lived  by  the 
labours  of  their  own  hands,  but  their  goodness  brought 
them  friends,  and  many  a  rich  gift  was  bestowed  on 
the  Abbey.  '  In  time  of  hay-making  and  harvest,' 
says  one  historian,  '  they  went  to  work  early  in  the 
morning  and  sometimes  did  not  return  home  till 
after  Vespers  ;  but  were  bound  to  recite  their  prayers 
in  the  fields  at  the  canonical  hours.'  Do  the  hinds 
who  plough  these  fields  by  the  river  now,  or  who 


138  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

labour  in  the  hay-field  at  the  close  of  a  July  day, 
never  hear  the  far-away  chime  of  the  Angelus  bell, 
and  see  the  white  monks  bowing  their  heads,  with 
folded  hands,  in  prayer  ? 

In  1150  the  monastery  was  founded,  and,  with  its 
graveyard,  was  consecrated  on  St.  Martin's  Day,  the 
llth  of  November,  '  that  no  demons  might  vex  it.' 

That,  in  spite  of  St.  Martin,  a  demon  did  haunt  it 
nearly  six  hundred  years  later,  tradition  tells  us. 
The  Abbey  was  in  ruins,  when,  soon  after  the  '45  had 
brought  sorrow  to  many  a  true-hearted  Scot,  a  half- 
crazed  woman,  a  wanderer  from  whence  none  knew, 
took  up  her  abode  in  a  vault  at  Dryburgh.  Her 
lover  had  gone  to  fight  for  Prince  Charlie,  and  she 
had  vowed  that  until  his  return  she  would  never  look 
upon  the  sun.  When  night  fell  she  was  accustomed 
to  go  to  one  of  the  neighbouring  houses  for  alms, 
and  at  midnight  would  light  a  candle  and  return  to 
her  vault.  During  her  absence,  so  she  told  those 
who  fed  her,  a  spirit,  in  form  like  a  little  man  wearing 
heavy  iron  shoes,  took  charge  of  her  cell,  tidying  it 
for  her,  and  treading  smooth  the  damp  clay  floor. 
'Fatlips'  was  the  name  by  which  she  knew  him,  and  for 
many  long  years  Fatlips  was  a  terror  to  the  country- 
folk. Her  lover  never  came  back,  and  to  this  day 
the  dark  and  dreary  vault  has  the  power  of  chilling 
one's  heart  with  the  memory  of  a  maimed  life,  into 
which  the  sun  never  returned.  Sir  Walter  Scott's 


THE  MONKS  139 

Eve  of  St.  John  is  supposed  to  owe  its  ending  to  the 
story  of  the  hapless  vagrant. 

*  There  is  a  nun  in  Dryburgh  bower 

Ne'er  looks  upon  the  sun  : 
There  is  a  monk  in  Melrose  tower, 
He  speaketh  word  to  none.' 

On  the  fair  abbeys  founded  by  David  and  other 
pious  men,  the  hand  of  Time  dealt  cruelly.  War, 
with  her  savage  children  of  fire  and  blood  and  rapine, 
never  allowed  the  Church  to  go  scatheless.  For 
century  after  century  the  Border  abbeys  were  the 
prey  of  their  country's  enemies  on  the  war-path, 
places  to  be  looted  and  destroyed.  The  Reformation 
was  scarcely  less  merciless  to  the  beautiful  buildings 
whose  exquisite  adornments  savoured  of  idolatry  to 
those  of  the  reformed  faith,  and  to  us  are  left  only 
the  ruins  of  what  might  still  have  been  our  country's 
pride.  Yet,  ruined  though  they  be,  the  abbeys  are 
gallant  monuments  to  those  who  made  them,  those 
whose  other  works  yet  speak,  in  ways  that  perhaps 
our  eyes  may  not  clearly  see,  our  minds  not  entirely 
comprehend.  For  their  beauty  alone  we  owe  our 
thanks  to  King  David,  to  his  Norman  knights,  and 
to  the  noble  army  of  craftsmen  who  showed  to  the 
rude  Border  folk  the  riches  of  knowledge  and  of  art. 

It  is  an  autumn  afternoon ;  the  rain  has  stopped, 
and  the  sun  shines  on  the  wet  grass  of  the  cloisters  at 
Dryburgh.  The  purple  clematis  clings  to  the  rosy 


140  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

stone  of  the  ruins,  and  high  on  the  walls,  above  the 
refectory  and  the  Abbot's  parlour,  the  amber  berries 
and  yellow  leaves  of  the  barberry  look  like  flames. 
But  for  the  murmur  of  Tweed  all  is  stillness  and 
peace — a  peace  that  passeth  understanding. 

Autumn  has  given  place  to  winter.  White  doves, 
like  the  spirits  of  the  pure  in  heart,  preen  their  feathers 
and  spread  their  wings  against  the  blue  sky  on  the 
snow-covered  ruins,  high  above  where  Eloise  Targa, 
and  the  great  Wizard,  and  many  another  whose  work 
is  done,  lie  asleep.  Still  no  sound  but  the  low  song 
of  the  river,  and  the  murmur  of  doves. 

'  Orate  pro  anima  Davidis  Regis ' 

would  here  be  a  petition  quite  easy  to  fulfil. 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE  141 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   WAR   OF  INDEPENDENCE 

And  the  cry  of  the  two  hosts  went  up  through  the  higher  air. 

Iliad,  Book  xnr. 

IF  the  apparition  of  the  skeleton  masquer  of  Jed- 
burgh  Abbey  indeed  foretold  the  death  of  a  great 
king,  equally  much  was  it  the  portent  of  death  to 
many  and  many  a  warrior  in  the  years  to  come. 

Since  Roman  days,  the  Border  had  never  been 
without  some  undried  stain  of  slain  men's  blood. 
Even  when  David  i.  was  king,  his  claim  to  the 
Earldom  of  Northumberland  meant  much  bloodshed, 
and  the  perpetration  of  many  horrors  by  Scottish 
armies  in  Northumberland  and  Durham,  by  English 
soldiers  in  the  Lothians  and  Roxburgh.  During 
the  reign  of  his  son,  William  the  Lion,  English  and 
Scots  fought  again,  but  the  seventy-two  years  covered 
by  the  reigns  of  the  Lion's  two  successors  have  been 
called  '  the  golden  age  of  Scottish  history.'  Through 
those  long  years  Scotland  and  England  were  virtually 
at  peace.  If  civil  war  now  and  again  blazed  out  north 
of  the  Forth,  at  least  the  waters  of  the  Border  streams 


142  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

were  not  reddened  by  the  life-blood  of  the  rival 
nations.  Celt,  Norman,  and  Saxon  had  at  length 
been  fused  into  one  people,  a  people  strong  enough  to 
withstand  the  assaults  of  any  foe  from  without,  when 
the  tragic  death  of  the  last  of  the  Celtic  Kings  left 
Scotland  rudderless.  The  ship  was  now  a  well-built 
ship,  but  without  a  captain ;  and  with  a  crew  jealous 
and  ever  ready  to  come  to  blows  over  questions  of  pre- 
cedence, it  was  far  from  being  a  craft  fit  to  meet  the 
waves  and  winds  and  storms  of  a  time  when  kings 
went  in  for  empire-making  with  strong  and  unscrupu- 
lous hands.  That  it  was  not  driven  upon  the  rocks 
a  submerged  wreck,  the  prey  for  evermore  of  other 
greedy  nations,  but  passed  through  stormy  years  to 
sail  in  triumph  into  port  at  last,  is  a  magnificent  fact, 
for  which  all  honour  be  given  to  the  two  patriots 
who  piloted  it  through. 

An  evil  year  for  Scotland  was  that  of  1296.  At 
Berwick,  before  the  Christmas  of  1295,  some  school 
children  were  terrified  by  the  apparition  of  a  bloody 
Christ.  At  Berwick,  in  the  spring  of  the  year,  there 
were  no  terrors  left  unfulfilled.  The  little  Maid  of 
Norway  was  dead.  Edward  I.  of  England  had  laid 
his  mail-clad  hand  on  the  kingless  country,  and 
with  well-gripped  sword  had  proclaimed  himself 
its  overlord.  His  puppet  king,  John  Balliol,  had 
been  allowed  for  four  years  to  wear  a  crown  that 
might,  for  anything  regal  that  it  carried  with  it, 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE          143 

have  been  of  tinsel.  He  had  then  been  mercilessly 
punished  for  insubordination  by  that  terrible  siege 
of  Berwick,  when  the  indiscriminate  massacre  by  the 
angry  monarch  set  afire  in  the  breast  of  every  Scot — 
more  especially  of  every  Border  Scot — that  spirit 
of  rage  and  resentment  against  England,  of  enmity 
even  to  the  death,  that  less  than  a  hundred  years 
ago  was  smouldering  still.  '  As  leaves  in  the  autumn 
the  Scots  fell,5  says  a  chronicler,  and  for  days  the 
Tweed  was  stained  crimson  as  it  ran  across  the  bar 
into  the  grey  sea  beyond,  carrying  the  dead  with  it. 
Edward  I.  stood  sponsor  for  a  race  of  Border 
reivers.  He  was  responsible  for  the  times  when  the 
counties  north  and  south  of  the  Cheviots  lay  in 
ashes,  while  widows  mourned  like  the  mothers  of 
Rama. 

The  Scots  began  their  vengeance  by  ravaging 
Tynedale  as  far  as  Hexham,  at  Corbridge  on  the 
Tyne  mercilessly  burning  in  their  schools  two  hundred 
'  little  clerks,'  as  schoolboys  were  then  called.  The 
battle  of  Dunbar  was  Edward's  reply  to  their  revenge. 
It  was  an  English  victory  that  cost  the  Scots  ten 
thousand  and  fifty-five  men.  As  far  as  the  Forest 
of  Ettrick  the  English  pursued  the  routed  army, 
slaying  and  sparing  not. 

*  Ragman  Roll '  was  a  result  of  King  Edward's 
subsequent  triumphal  march  through  Scotland.  Some 
two  thousand  landowners  subscribed  their  names  to 


144  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

this  demoralised  document,  as  faithful  lieges  to  their 
sovereign  lord,  the  King  of  the  English.  Pactum 
Seroa — 'Keep  covenant' — was  Edward's  own  motto, 
yet  he  obviously  acted  on  the  principle  that  *  Promises, 
like  pie-crust,  are  made  to  be  broken,'  and  the  land- 
holders of  Scotland  in  those  days  were  no  more 
punctilious  about  the  keeping  of  their  pledged  word 
than  was  the  king  they  had  sworn  to  serve.  The 
name  of  Robert  the  Bruce  appears  on  the  Roll, 
but  not  that  of  William  Wallace,  perhaps  because 
Wallace  was  not  sufficiently  big  game  for  the 
English  monarch.  '  From  his  den,  as  it  were,'  says 
Fordun,  '  William  Wallace  lifted  up  his  head.' 
From  his  boyhood  William  Wallace,  younger  son 
of  Sir  Malcolm  Wallace  of  Elderslie  in  Renfrewshire, 
had  had  a  wholesome  hatred  of  the  English  race. 
There  are  tales,  probably  more  or  less  mythical,  of 
fights  with  English  soldiers  when  he  was  still  a  boy — 
a  well-developed  young  giant — more  likely  to  be  keen 
about  the  size  of  the  baskets  of  trout  that  he  caught 
than  about  questions  of  patriotism  and  loyalty. 
Later  on,  his  wife  was  brutally  killed  by  Englishmen 
at  Lanark,  and  for  her  death  he  made  the  life  of 
Andrew  de  Livingston,  English  Sheriff  of  Clydesdale, 
pay  the  penalty. 

Thereafter  Wallace  was  an  outlaw,  the  boldest 
and  most  famous  brigand  of  his  time.  But  it  was 
not  long  ere  he  ceased  to  fight  for  his  own  hand. 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE          145 

His  blood  feud  was  merged  into  one  so  great  that  he 
was  no  longer  a  robber  chief,  dealing  out  unsparing 
vengeance  to  his  own  enemies,  but  a  patriot  whose 
life  was  dedicated  to  the  redemption  of  his  own  country 
from  slavery  to  an  alien  usurper.  For  some  time  he 
carried  on  a  guerilla  warfare  and  made  his  strong- 
hold in  the  Forest  of  Ettrick.  '  Wallace's  Trench  '— 
a  work  of  a  thousand  feet  in  length,  near  the  Hanging- 
shaw,  on  a  steep  hillside  between  Ettrick  and  Yarrow 
— remains  to  this  day.  Ere  long  his  countrymen 
realised  that  for  them  had  arisen  a  champion  who 
knew  not  the  meaning  of  fear,  and  to  '  the  dowie 
dens  of  Yarrow  '  came  those  who  held  their  country 
dear — 

'  Fra  Tawydaill  cum  gud  men  mony  ane ; 
Out  of  Jedwart,  with  Ruthvane  at  yar  tyd, 
Togyddr  socht  fra  mony  diuerss  syd.' 

Sir  Nicol  de  Rutherfurd  came  with  sixty  followers, 
and  a  popular  rhyme  tells  us  that 

'  When  Wallace  came  to  Gladswood  Cross 
Haig  of  Bemersyde  met  him  with  many  good  horse.' 

In  1297  Wallace,  with  a  following  of  Borderers, 
boldly  marched  northward,  and  laid  siege  to  Dundee. 
Edward  I.  was  in  Flanders,  but  a  strong  English 
army  under  Cressingham  and  Warenne  hastened 
up  from  Berwick  to  quench  the  rising.  At  Stirling 
they  found  that  Wallace's  army  had  come  to  meet 


146  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

them  and  lay  in  battle  array  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Forth.  Two  friars  were  sent  by  the  English  general 
to  '  that  brigand  Wallace,1  to  offer  terms. 

4  Go  back,'  said  Wallace,  '  and  tell  your  masters 
that  we  came  not  here  to  ask  for  peace  as  a  boon, 
but  to  fight  for  our  freedom.  Let  them  come  up 
when  they  will,  and  they  shall  find  us  ready  to  beard 
them.' 

Ready  they  were  indeed.  The  English  were  shame- 
fully routed,  and  the  victorious  army  led  by  Wallace 
and  a  certain  Andrew  Murray — a  good  Borderer,  if 
we  may  judge  from  his  name — sought  to  compensate 
themselves  for  past  lean  years  by  invading  England, 
slaying  and  plundering  as  they  went.  Mercilessly 
did  they  harry  Northumberland  and  Cumberland, 
not  sparing  the  abbeys.  '  Sacred  service  ceased  in 
all  monasteries  and  churches  from  Carlisle  to  New- 
castle.' Their  march  began  in  September,  and  in 
December  came  snow — miraculously  sent  by  St. 
Cuthbert,  said  the  English  admirers  of  that  saint— 
which  meant  many  hardships  to  the  Scots.  An 
English  chronicler  has  handed  down  to  posterity 
tales  of  barbarities  practised  on  harmless  nuns  and 
monks  by  the  conquering  army,  but  his  nationality 
may  account  for  a  certain  amount  of  prejudice,  leading 
to  uncomplimentary  inaccuracies.  Even  he,  however, 
has  something  good  to  say  for  Scotland's  hero.  At 
Hexham  a  party  of  Scots  laid  violent  hands  on  three 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE         147 

of  the  Austin  Canons.  4  Show  us  your  treasury  or 
die  !  '  they  said.  But  either  the  canons  did  not  know 
or  would  not  tell,  and  it  would  have  gone  hard  with 
the  monks  had  not  Wallace  entered  at  the  critical 
moment.  He  reprimanded  his  men,  and  asked  one 
of  the  canons  to  say  Mass.  While  Wallace  retired 
to  lay  aside  his  armour  for  the  elevation  of  the  Host, 
his  Scots  stole  the  chalice.  He  apologised,  saying 
that  it  was  not  possible  in  such  things  to  control  his 
people,  but  gave  to  the  monastery  a  document 
granting  it  protection  in  the  name  of  '  the  leaders 
of  the  army  of  Scotland.' 

On  his  return  to  Scotland,  at  '  the  Forest  Kirk  '  of 
Selkirk,  Wallace,  the  outlaw  of  the  Forest,  was  ap- 
pointed '  Guardian  of  Scotland  and  leader  of  its  armies.' 
But  not  for  long  was  he  to  maintain  his  country's  cause 
against  Edward,  *  The  Hammer  of  the  Scots.'  In  July 
1298  the  battle  of  Falkirk  took  place.  A  huge  host 
under  the  English  King  met  Wallace's  little  patriot 
army  of  Clydesdale  pikemen,  Highland  swordsmen, 
and  bowmen  from  Ettrick  Forest. 

'  I  have  brought  you  to  the  ring,  dance  as  you  may,' 
he  said,  when  he  had  drawn  them  up  in  battle  array. 
But  the  measure  trod  by  the  Scottish  horse  was  a 
shameful  one.  At  the  first  onslaught  of  the  English 
cavalry  they  turned  and  fled  without  drawing  sword, 
leaving  spearmen  and  bowmen  to  defend  their 
country's  honour.  The  English  cavalry  then  charged 


148  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

the  bowmen,  who,  when  bows  had  to  be  cast  aside, 
defended  themselves  with  their  short  swords  as  best 
they  could.  A  gallant  stand  they  made,  only  to 
fall  as  their  descendants  fell  at  Flodden.  As  they 
lay  dead  on  the  field  after  the  battle  their  enemies 
marvelled  at  their  tall  stature  and  great  beauty. 
No  longer  defended  by  the  Flowers  of  the  Forest, 
the  pikemen  fell  an  easy  prey  to  the  grey  goosequill 
of  the  English  archers,  and  the  cavalry  completed 
the  rout,  sweeping  the  broken  army  before  them  in 
the  fierce  tide  of  victory.  Sir  John  Graham — l  He 
was  a  lord  of  the  south  countrie  ' — lay  among  the  slain. 
4  Alas  !  my  best  brother,  my  true  friend  when  I  was 
hardest  bestead ! '  said  Wallace,  as  he  kissed  the 
dead  face  ere  he  himself  had  to  flee  before  his  victors. 
A  hunted  outlaw  now  was  William  Wallace.  A 
price  was  put  on  his  head  by  Edward  of  England, 
but  for  seven  years  he  succeeded  in  withstanding 
those  who  hunted  him ;  for  seven  years  he  continued 
to  work  and  to  fight  for  his  country's  freedom.  In 
1305  Sir  John  Menteith,  a  Scottish  knight,  sold  his 
friend  and  his  own  honour.  Wallace  was  betrayed 
to  the  English.  He,  than  whom  surely  never  was 
truer  man,  was  tried  in  London  as  a  traitor,  and  at 
Smithfield  suffered  a  barbarous  and  shameful  death. 
As  a  traitor's,  his  body  was  hacked  in  pieces  and 
exhibited  as  a  warning  to  all  enemies  of  England  and 
of  her  king.  His  head  was  stuck  on  London  Bridge 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE          149 

for  sun,  wind,  snow  and  rain  to  beat  on,  to  be  pecked 
at  by  the  gulls  that  come  up  the  river  with  the  tide. 
One  of  his  arms  was  exposed  at  Berwick,  a  warlike 
town  that  was  never  spared  any  horror  by  the  bene- 
ficent builder  of  its  Edwardian  Wall.  His  death  was 
a  blot  upon  England's  nobleness  almost  as  great  as 
was  that  of  the  little  French  maid  who,  a  hundred 
years  later,  was  made  to  suffer  for  her  native  land. 

William  Wallace  was  only  thirty-five  when  his 
fight  for  Scotland  ended,  but  through  the  stormy 
years  of  his  manhood  he  lived  for  his  country  ;  for 
his  country  his  life  was  sacrificed.  In  times  when 
men  too  often  were  fighting  for  their  own  hands,  he 
towers  giant-like  above  their  pettinesses  and  party 
strife,  a  leal-hearted,  single-minded  patriot.  What 
our  country  owes  to  him  we  can  but  reverently  guess 
at.  Only  God  knows. 

On  the  Border,  the  Wars  of  Independence  brought 
evil  days.  The  Border  abbeys — representing  un- 
earned increment — were  constantly  subjected  to 
attacks  from  military  buccaneers.  The  monastery 
of  Kelso  became  a  ruin ;  its  monks  subsisted  on  the 
alms  of  other  religious  houses. 

For  the  death  of  Wallace  meant  only  the  end  of  the 
first  chapter  of  a  desperate  struggle.  Wallace's  head 
still  bleached  on  the  bridge  over  the  Thames,  when 
Robert  the  Bruce  arose  to  fight  for  Scotland's  honour. 
At  first  Bruce  was  no  patriot.  Before  a  man  is  prepared 


150  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

to  fight,  to  suffer,  and  to  die  for  it,  he  must  be  very 
sure  which  country  is  indeed  his  own.  As  an  Anglo- 
Norman  Bruce  could  not  be  expected  to  have  any 
passionate  sentiment  for  Scotland,  which  was  not  the 
land  of  his  birth,  but  merely  that  of  his  possessions. 
He  loved  his  own  lands,  his  own  importance,  much 
more  than  he  loved  the  country  of  his  mother,  daughter 
of  the  Earl  of  Carrick.  Most  of  all  did  he  love  the 
crown  of  Scotland  as  a  possible  future  property  of 
his  own.  He  played  fast  and  loose  with  patriotism. 
He  was  King  Edward's  man  when  King  Edward 
treated  him  well.  Thwarted,  he  kicked  like  a  spoilt 
child,  and  rebelled  against  the  monarch  who  refused 
to  give  him  all  that  he  demanded.  In  1304  he  was 
Edward's  '  loyal  and  faithful  Robert  de  Brus,'  in 
pursuit  of  Wallace,  whom  he  defeated  in  March  at 
Peebles.  In  the  same  year  he  was  in  charge  of  the 
English  guns  at  the  siege  of  Stirling.  In  all  probability 
he  was  present  at  the  execution  of  Wallace.  As  one 
of  the  royal  retinue  he  must  often  have  ridden  over 
London  Bridge,  past  the  head  of  the  man  whose  love 
of  country  brought  him  the  death  of  a  traitor. 
Whether  the  influence  of  Wallace  did  aught  to  stir  a 
heart  that  in  later  days  proved  to  be  so  great,  who 
can  say  ?  Jealousy  and  hatred  of  a  favoured  rival 
seem  more  likely  causes  for  bringing  him  into  the  path 
he  trod.  In  the  Church  of  the  Greyfriars  at  Dumfries, 
in  February  1306,  Robert  the  Bruce  effectually  burned 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE         151 

his  ships  by  slaying  the  Red  Comyn.  He  could  chop 
and  change  no  longer.  To  the  death  his  lot  was  cast 
with  those  Scots  who  could  not  temporise  with  the 
English  King,  because  they  were  recognised  once  and 
for  all  as  England's  enemies. 

Whatever  else  Scotsmen  may  have  known  Bruce 
to  be,  at  least  they  recognised  him  as  a  fearless 
warrior.  Now  that  he  had  flung  his  gauntlet  in  the 
face  of  the  English  King  and  become  a  proclaimed 
outlaw,  they  could  feel  that  again  they  owned  a 
leader  who  would  fight  to  the  death.  It  was  no 
little  matter  for  any  mortal  man  to  defy  Edward  i. 
England  was  then,  perhaps,  the  greatest  power  in 
Europe.  Its  navy  ruled  the  seas.  Its  barons 
were  descended  from  the  conquerors  of  the  Sara- 
cens, the  very  flower  of  chivalry.  They  were  all 
united  under  one  great,  bonding,  feudal  system, 
and  their  followers  were  ready  to  fight  and  to  die 
for  them.  The  English  yeomanry  helped  to  form  a 
magnificent  army — that  army  which,  not  many  years 
later,  humbled  France  itself.  Moreover,  the  treasury 
of  England  was  well  equipped  and  more  than  fit  to 
stand  the  drain  of  a  long  and  arduous  war.  All  this 
Robert  the  Bruce  knew  well.  He  had  grown  up  in 
England,  fought  under  Edward.  He  had  seen  the 
Scots  with  their  targes  of  leather,  their  light  spears 
and  clumsy  swords,  rush  against  the  mail-clad  English 
warriors  on  their  magnificent  chargers ;  had  watched 


152  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

them  being  broken  and  dashed  to  destruction  like 
little  boats  that  are  threshed  against  great  rocks  in 
a  storm.  He  had  looked  on  at  his  mother's  country- 
men being  mowed  down  by  a  fearful  flight  of  English 
arrows  as  a  scythe  mows  down  swathes  of  daisies  and 
grass  in  a  meadow.  He  knew  that  the  Scots  were 
wretchedly  poor,  badly  fed,  miserably  housed  in 
hovels  of  turf,  branch- thatched.  A  famine  had 
recently  brought  them  near  starvation,  and  the  country 
was  additionally  weakened  by  years  of  English  rule 
and  tyranny  and  by  the  evils  of  war.  Jealousy  had 
divided  the  Scottish  nobles.  Everywhere  was  discord 
and  suspicion.  There  was  no  army,  no  royal  treasury 
behind  King  Robert.  Yet,  with  forty  men  at  his 
back,  he  dared  all. 

To  his  standard,  while  he  was  still  an  uncrowned 
king,  came  all  loyal  Scotsmen  who  did  not  fear  openly 
to  defy  Edward  of  England,  their  common  enemy. 
At  St.  Andrews,  as  page  to  his  uncle,  Bishop 
Lamberton,  was  James  Douglas,  the  pale,  stalwart, 
dark-eyed  lad,  whose  father,  Sir  William  Douglas, 
known  as  '  Le  Hardi,'  was  one  of  the  Border  warriors 
upon  whom  had  fallen  Edward's  unsparing  enmity. 
Douglas  of  Blackhouse,  up  Yarrow,  was  Governor 
of  Berwick  when  it  was  sacked  by  the  English,  and 
for  that  crime,  and  for  other  failures  in  allegiance 
to  the  King  of  England,  he  was  for  years  imprisoned 
in  irons,  his  lands  were  forfeited,  and  in  the  Tower 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE          153 

of  London  he  died.  An  impenitent  rebel  he  evidently 
was,  for  his  gaoler  at  Berwick  wrote  of  him  to  King 
Edward — '  He  is  still  very  savage  and  very  abusive  ' 
(uncore  mout  sauvage  e  mout  araillez). 

'  The  Good  Lord  James,'  or  '  The  Black  Douglas,' 
to  use  the  names  by  which  we  know  him  best,  was 
educated  in  Glasgow  and  in  Paris,  and  was  '  the  most 
complete  and  best  accomplished  young  man  in  all 
Scotland,  or  in  any  other  land.'  On  his  return  from 
France,  Bishop  Lamberton  presented  him  to  Edward  i. 
and  craved  for  him  the  restitution  of  his  father's 
lands,  and  a  place  at  the  English  court. 

'  The  lands  are  given  to  better  men  than  you,' 
said  Edward ;  '  and  had  they  not  been  given,  still 
they  should  never  have  been  yours.  I  have  no  service 
for  the  sons  of  traitors.' 

No  spur  from  without  was  needed  for  the  patriotism 
of  James  Douglas  when  news  of  the  Bruce's  rising 
reached  St.  Andrews.  He  borrowed  a  horse  from  the 
Bishop,  and,  with  his  blessing,  sped  off  to  join  the 
Bruce.  At  Erricstane,  a  lonely  pass  near  Tweedsmuir, 
he  met  Bruce  on  his  way  from  Lochmaben  to  Glasgow. 
Where,  even  well  on  in  spring,  snow  still  lies  in 
hollows  in  the  hills,  and  deep  behind  the  stone  dykes, 
and  where  the  winds  of  February  and  March  blow 
cruelly  over  the  moors,  Bruce  welcomed  to  his  ranks 
the  man  who,  of  all  the  friends  he  ever  knew,  was 
the  truest  and  the  best, — a  man  who  never,  to  his 


154  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

life's  end,  bowed  the  knee  to  any  king  save  to 
Robert,  King  of  Scots. 

While  the  Bruce  and  his  queen  and  their  little 
band  of  faithful  outlaws  endured  all  the  hardships 
and  dangers  of  the  hunted,  Douglas  was  the  one  who 
did  most  of  all  for  the  comfort  of  those  he  served. 
He  was  a  Borderer,  and  therefore  a  sportsman,  and 
better  skilled  than  any  other  in  tracking  and  slaying 
the  red  deer  in  the  Highland  forest  where  the  royal 
party  lay  hid — better  skilled  than  any  other  was  he 
in  catching  salmon  and  trout  from  the  northern 
rivers  and  lonely  mountain  burns.  He  was  ever  gay, 
ever  fearless,  always  assured  that  however  black 
the  present  seemed,  all  would  yet  go  well.  What 
better  friend  could  any  landless  king  desire  ?  As  the 
Bruce's  affairs  prospered,  to  the  Black  Douglas  was 
given,  during  the  troublous  years  while  Scotland 
laboured  for  her  freedom,  the  onerous  task  of  making 
the  Borders,  now  under  English  Tule,  the  proud 
possession  of  a  Scottish  King.  With  all  the  tact 
and  caution  of  a  veteran  well  trained  in  scouting, 
he  guarded  the  lands  he  was  to  gain  for  the  king 
before  he  openly  captained  his  troops  to  victory. 

Late  one  evening  he  came  to  a  house  on  the  Water 
of  Lyne  in  Peeblesshire,  meaning  to  spend  the  night 
there  with  his  handful  of  followers.  As  he  drew 
near,  lights  told  him  that  it  was  already  occupied. 
The  voices  of  men  who  had  supped  well  were  raised 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE         155 

in  altercation,  and  Douglas  bade  his  men  surround 
the  house  and  listen  well. 

*  The  Devil ! '  said  a  voice  from  within. 

'  No  true  Scot  is  here,'  thought  Douglas.  '  Deil  is 
what  our  lads  would  say.' 

Straightway  the  door  was  burst  in,  and  ere  those 
within  could  grip  their  swords,  the  slogan  of  '  A 
Douglas  !  a  Douglas  !  '  told  them  into  whose  hands 
they  had  fallen.  Randolph,  Bruce's  nephew,  and 
future  valiant  ally,  was  among  the  prisoners. 

In  Douglasdale,  his  own  territory,  by  the  terrible 
victory  and  vengeance  of  '  The  Douglas  Larder,' 
the  Douglas  struck  a  powerful  blow  for  his  king. 
Later  on,  when  the  English  had  rebuilt  the  charred 
ruins,  he  retook  '  Castle  Dangerous,'  and  for  the  tale 
of  its  fall  one  must  go  to  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

To  Tweedside  he  came  then.  On  a  high,  grassy 
mound,  overlooking  Tweed  and  Teviot,  which  glide 
under  the  shadow  of  great  trees  until  they  unite  a 
little  further  to  the  south,  there  are  still  to  be  found 
some  grey  stones  and  ruined  fragments  of  what  were 
once  the  walls  of  Roxburgh  Castle.  Few  royal  castles 
have  seen  more  fighting.  Few  have  oftener  changed 
hands.  Now  Scots,  now  English — Scots  once  again, 
English  once  more — its  garrisons  changed  withbewilder- 
ing  frequency.  Scarce  a  stone  of  its  ruins  now  but 
what  must  have  cost  ten  good  lives  at  least — lives  of 
those  who  defended  it,  those  who  attacked.  A  gallant 


156  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

army  of  the  noble  dead  might  guard  its  ruined  battle- 
ments now,  captained  by  the  shade  of  a  Scottish 
King. 

On  a  dark  February  night  in  1314,  at  the  end  of  a 
Feast  Day — Shrove  Tuesday  to  the  English,  to  the 
Scots  Eastern's  E'en — when  most  of  the  garrison 
as  well  as  those  without  had  been  making  merry 
and  drinking  deep,  the  Black  Douglas  with  sixty 
men  crept  up  to  the  fields  that  lie  between  the  Tweed 
and  Roxburgh  Castle.  A  handy  craftsman,  known 
as  '  Sym  of  the  Ledehouse,'  had  made  ingenious 
scaling  ladders  of  ropes  with  hooks  at  the  end, 
and  these  they  carried  with  them.  They  hid  their 
armour  under  black  cloaks,  left  their  horses  at  a  safe 
distance,  and  crept  forward  to  the  castle  on  all 
fours.  Presently  they  were  so  near  the  wall  that, 
above  the  murmur  of  Tweed  and  Teviot  as  they 
rushed  in  winter  flood  through  their  wooded  banks, 
they  could  hear  what  passed  in  the  castle.  Bursts 
of  drunken  revelry  came  from  within,  and  on  the 
walls  two  of  the  guard  were  talking. 

'  The  farmer  down  there  is  having  a  gay  Shrove- 
tide,' said  one  to  the  other.  '  He  has  left  all  his 
oxen  out.' 

*  He  will  be  less  merry  to-morrow,'  said  the  other, 
4  if  the  Black  Douglas  drives  them  off  in  the  night.' 

Carelessly  the  men  glanced  down  at  the  dark  moving 
forms  that  they  took  for  black  cattle,  and  strode  on. 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE         157 

On  the  battlements,  away  from  the  shouts  of  the 
revellers,  sat  a  woman  hushing  her  fretful  child  to 
sleep.  So  terrible  had  Douglas  become  to  the  English, 
who  knew  him  only  as  a  fierce  and  merciless  warrior 
who  nearly  always  won,  that  it  was  of  him  that  the 
mother  sang — 

'  Hush  ye,  hush  ye,  little  pet  ye, 
Hush  ye,  hush  ye,  do  not  fret  ye, 
The  Black  Douglas  shall  not  get  ye.' 

'  You  are  not  so  sure  of  that,'  said  a  voice  close 
beside  her,  and  a  mailed  hand  was  laid  on  her  shoulder. 
There  stood  the  Black  Douglas,  a  tall,  grim  figure, 
his  dark  eyes  smiling  at  her  fright.  Sym  of  the  Lede- 
house  had  climbed  up  a  ladder  just  behind  the  Douglas, 
but  as  he  clambered  on  to  the  wall,  a  sentinel  going 
his  round  came  on  him  and  drove  at  him  with  his 
lance.  A  quick  upward  thrust  of  a  knife,  and  the 
man  dropped  dead. 

'  All  goes  as  we  will,  haste  ye  up ! '  said  Sym  to  his 
friends  below,  heaving  over  the  sentinel's  body  to 
show  them  how  he  had  sped.  Quickly  the  others 
swarmed  after  him,  and  in  a  minute  the  garrison  was 
roused  by  shouts  of  '  A  Douglas  !  a  Douglas  !  '  The 
fight  was  a  fierce  one.  The  Warden,  Sir  Gilmyn  de 
Fiennes,  a  gallant  Gascon,  with  most  of  his  men 
slain,  still  held  out  in  the  castle  tower.  When  day- 
light came,  the  Scots  attacked  the  tower  with  a 
deadly  fusilade  of  arrows.  De  Fiennes  was  struck 


158  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

in  the  face  and  so  grievously  wounded  that  he  was 
forced  to  surrender,  but  only  on  condition  that  he 
and  the  remnant  of  his  garrison  should  march  out 
with  all  the  honours  of  war  and  be  given  a  safe-conduct 
across  the  Border.  Fate  was  merciful  to  him,  for, 
says  Hume  of  Godscroft,  '  hee  lived  not  long  after, 
his  wound  being  deadly  and  incurable.' 

In  June  of  the  same  year  Bannockburn  was  fought 
and  won.  At  the  battle  the  archers  of  Ettrick 
Forest  did  great  work  with  bow  and  arrow,  and 
with  their  steel  sperthes  when  fortune  brought  them 
near  enough  their  foes  to  give  them  the  coup  de 
grace.  Jethart  axes — the  iron-pointed  staves  from 
Jedburgh  —  were  but  rude  weapons  compared  with 
those  of  the  English  fighters  and  their  allies  from 
France  and  Gascony,  Hainault,  Brittany,  and 
Aquitaine;  but  that  slogan  of  the  Jedforest  lads- 
'  Jethart 's  here ! '  was  a  promise  of  a  cruel  death 
to  many  a  warrior  on  that  bloody  day.  A  flag  taken 
from  the  English  at  Bannockburn  is  still  preserved  as 
a  priceless  relic  by  the  weavers  of  Jedburgh. 

With  only  sixty  horsemen  to  back  him — some 
reinforcements  were  picked  up  on  the  way — the 
Black  Douglas  gave  chase  to  King  Edward,  as  he, 
with  five  hundred  horse,  fled  from  the  battlefield. 
For  the  defeated  king  it  was  a  race  with  death.  Did 
a  horse  stumble  or  founder  and  his  rider  lag  behind, 
that  rider's  life  was  forfeit.  At  Dunbar,  Edward  and 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE          159 

seventeen  followers  found  refuge  with  the  Earl  of 
March  and  were  sent  off  to  Berwick  in  a  little  fishing 
smack.  The  others,  with  Douglas  and  his  men  still 
in  full  cry,  had  to  push  along  the  cliffs  to  Berwick. 
The  Douglas  was  ever  a  sportsman  ;  he  4  loved  better 
to  hear  the  lark  sing  than  the  mouse  cheep,'  And 
surely  no  man  ever  hunted  in  circumstances  better 
calculated  to  try  every  power  of  endurance  than  did 
the  Black  Douglas  when  he  left  one  of  the  greatest 
battlefields  of  history  after  many  and  many  an  hour 
of  fierce  fighting,  and  rode  a  chase  of  over  ninety 
miles,  with,  for  royal  quarry,  a  defeated  king. 

Bannockburn  won,  the  Douglas  was  able  to  give 
full  attention  to  the  Borders,  and  to  purge  them  of 
the  enemies  of  Robert  Bruce.  The  men  of  Tweeddale, 
Teviotdale,  and  Ettrick  Forest  had  long  since  thrown 
off  any  semblance  of  allegiance  to  the  English  King, 
but  Jedburgh  and  other  Border  towns  still  remained 
under  English  rule,  and  English  raids  were  frequent. 
In  1317,  while  Bruce  was  in  Ireland,  the  Earl  of 
Arundel  and  Sir  Thomas  Richmond,  a  Yorkshire 
knight,  deemed  it  a  favourable  time  to  raid  the 
Scottish  Border.  In  the  peaceful  Jed  valley,  at 
Lintalee,  where  the  river  flows  through  thickly 
wooded  haughs,  the  Douglas  had  built  for  himself  a 
pavilion  and  was  laying  out  a  park.  He  had  made 
noble  preparations  for  a  house-warming,  when  news 
came  to  him  of  the  near  approach  of  the  enemy. 


160  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

His  force  consisted  of  fifty  men-at-arms  and  a  small 
body  of  archers,  and  with  this  he  had  to  meet  an  army 
of  ten  thousand  men.  Arundel  and  Richmond  had 
armed  their  soldiers  with  woodmen's  axes  in  addition 
to  their  ordinary  weapons,  for  when  Douglas's  little 
army  had  been  annihilated,  Jed  Forest  was  to  be 
felled  down.  Too  long  had  it  been  a  safe  covert  for 
dangerous  Scots. 

Carefully  did  the  Douglas  lay  his  plans.  Long 
years  of  campaigning,  when  extra  wits  had  to  com- 
pensate for  lack  of  men,  had  not  been  wasted  on 
him.  To  reach  Lintalee  the  English  had  to  pass 
through  a  narrow  glen  thickly  wooded,  and  there 
Douglas  hid  his  archers.  No  barbed  wire  en- 
tanglements were  known  then,  but  he  made  his 
men  bend  down  the  '  young  birk  trees '  (as  the 
historian  has  it)  and  plait  their  tops  together,  so 
forming  a  net  through  which  the  enemy  could  not 
break.  It  was  not  long  ere  a  company  of  Englishmen, 
the  most  heedless  of  gallant  flies,  rode  straight  into 
the  web  so  carefully  prepared  for  them.  Nothing 
more  dangerous  could  they  see  than  scared  rabbits, 
or  a  red-tailed  fox  scurrying  into  the  bracken.  There 
was  no  sound  but  the  murmur  of  water  over  the  stones, 
the  whisper  of  the  wind  through  the  silver  birches. 
Then  suddenly  the  silence  was  shattered,  and  the 
echoes  rang  with  the  shout  before  which  many  a 
brave  man  had  paled — *  A  Douglas  I  a  Douglas  ! ' 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE         161 

From  the  woods  poured  forth  a  deadly  hail  of  arrows, 
and,  following  the  arrows  in  their  flight,  burst  forth 
men-at-arms  to  whom  a  good  fight  was  as  strong 
drink.  The  sob  of  dying  men  soon  mingled  with  the 
sound  of  the  trickling  stream,  and  Sir  Thomas  Rich- 
mond lay  among  the  dead  in  the  glen  near  the  river. 
With  his  own  hand  Douglas  slew  him,  and  carried 
off,  as  token  of  victory,  the  cap  of  beaver-skin  that 
the  English  knight  wore  over  his  helmet.  The  day 
was  won  when  the  Douglas  heard  that  three  hundred 
Englishmen,  unconscious  of  the  disaster  that  had  over- 
taken Richmond's  detachment,  were  making  merry  at 
Lintalee  and  devouring  the  feast  he  had  prepared  for 
himself  and  his  friends.  On  them,  as  they  feasted, 
fell  Douglas  and  his  men,  and  few  of  the  unbidden 
guests  at  that  party  left  Lintalee.  A  wreath  of  stakes 
in  the  armorial  bearings  of  the  Douglas  family  is  said 
to  commemorate  the  birchen  net  that  won  a  battle 
and  dispersed  in  shameful  flight  the  would-be  hewers 
of  the  Forest. 

1  The  Forest  left  tha  standand  still, 
To  hew  it  than  tha  had  na  will.' 

In  1316  the  English  garrison  of  Berwick  was  sore 
bestead.  To  the  hungry  soldiers,  death  at  the  sword's 
point  seemed  a  fate  more  to  be  desired  than  death  from 
starvation.  They  mutinied,  and  on  St.  Valentine's 
Day  a  company  of  Gascons  rode  forth  to  forage  across 
the  Scottish  Border.  They  were  driving  home  their 


162  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

spoil  of  cattle  when  the  ubiquitous  Douglas  was  upon 
them.  He  had  only  a  few  spearmen  to  help  him  to 
maintain  his  country's  honour,  yet  so  furious  was  this 
onslaught  that  twenty  men-at-arms  and  sixty  foot- 
soldiers  were  slain.  It  was  the  hottest  encounter 
that  Douglas  ever  had,  so  Barbour  tells  us,  and  that 
we  may  well  believe,  for  he  dealt  with  starving  men. 
It  was  after  this  exploit  that  Sir  Robert  de  Nevill, 
known  from  his  vanity  as  '  The  Peacock  of  the  North.' 
at  Berwick  swore  a  mighty  oath.  He  was  sick  of 
hearing  of  the  Black  Douglas,  he  vowed,  and  next 
time  that  he  saw  that  warrior's  banner  unfurled  he 
would  fight  him,  and  trounce  him  most  soundly. 
No  sooner  did  the  boast  reach  Douglas's  ears  than  he 
and  his  men  were  off  to  Berwick,  marching  all  night 
and  giving  the  Peacock  some  light  by  which  to  see 
the  advancing  banner  by  setting  fire  to  the  villages 
that  he  passed.  When  dawn  lit  up  the  white  surf  on 
the  bar  at  Berwick,  and  made  the  Tweed,  up  to  Twizel, 
a  river  of  gold,  the  defiant  banner  with  its  three  silver 
stars  on  the  azure  field  waved  under  the  grey  walls. 
Nevill,  a  man  of  his  word,  spurred  out  to  meet  his  foe, 
with,  for  escort,  the  pick  of  his  men-at-arms.  The 
Douglas  demanded  a  duel,  and  Nevill  could  not  but 
grant  it.  Almost  at  once  he  fell  under  the  Douglas's 
sword,  his  followers  fled,  and  his  three  brothers  were 
taken  prisoners  and  ransomed  afterwards  for  3000 
merks  apiece. 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE  163 

Berwick  was  ever  a  town  that  Scots  and  English 
strove  by  much  shedding  of  blood  to  have  for  their 
own.  It  was  in  English  hand's,  the  English  governor 
had  made  himself  hated  by  the  burghers  by  his  inso- 
lence and  arrogance,  and  the  townspeople,  besieged 
by  the  Scots,  were  near  starvation,  when  one  of  its 
burgesses,  Patrick  de  Spalding  by  name,  resolved  that 
no  longer  should  his  town  be  the  footstool  of  a  bullying 
Englishman.  To  the  Scottish  lines  he  sent  word  that 
he  was  with  them,  and  one  night  when  de  Spalding 
watched  the  walls,  they  were  scaled  by  Douglas, 
Randolph,  and  their  men,  and  in  a  few  hours  Berwick- 
on-Tweed  was  in  Scottish  hands.  Furious  at  its  loss, 
Edward  n.,  with  a  great  army,  came  in  1319  and 
laid  siege  to  it.  The  garrison  was  much  outnumbered, 
but  even  women  and  children  helped  in  the  warfare 
and  carried  arrows  for  the  archers  whose  bows  twanged 
from  the  walls.  It  was  time  to  distract  Edward's 
attention  from  Berwick-on-Tweed,  so  off  to  the 
north  of  England  rode  Douglas  and  Randolph,  burning 
and  plundering  as  they  went.  At  Myton,  near  York, 
the  Archbishop  of  York  brought  an  army  of  four 
thousand  to  check  them.  With  ease  the  Scots  routed 
this  force,  driving  it  in  such  confusion  before  them 
that  there  were,  says  Hume  of  Godscroft, '  a  thousand 
drowned  in  the  water  of  Swail,  and  if  the  night  had 
not  come  in  too  soon,  the  battell  being  joyned  in  the 
afternoon,  few  or  none  of  them  had  escaped  as  it  is 


164  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

thought.'  News  of  this  defeat  reached  Edward  at 
Berwick,  and  in  terror  lest  the  Scottish  light  horse 
might  do  still  further  harm  hi  his  own  realm  did 
they  not  speedily  meet  with  a  check,  he  raised 
the  siege,  and  marched  southward  in  undignified 
haste. 

Some  time  later,  papal  intervention  secured  a 
truce  between  the  two  countries,  but  it  was  of  short 
duration.  There  were  Scottish  raids  and  English 
reprisals ;  English  forays  and  ugly  revenges  by 
the  Scots.  Who  can  say  who  struck  the  first 
blow? 

In  1322  the  Black  Douglas  and  Randolph  had  got 
themselves  so  thoroughly  disliked  by  the  powers 
across  the  Border  that  three  times  daily  at  Mass 
were  they  cursed  by  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury 
and  York,  by  all  the  priests  in  England,  and  by  their 
most  zealously  obedient  congregations.  Not  a  curse 
did  these  two  warriors  care  for  the  commination 
services  held  in  their  honour.  Through  Yorkshire 
they  promptly  came  on  news  of  the  cursings,  wasted 
as  they  went  and  brought  home  a  great  booty. 
Northumberland,  Westmoreland,  and  Cumberland  all 
paid  their  toll.  Even  to  the  citizens  of  Chester  did 
the  Douglas  banner  become  familiar 

This  year's  work  was  too  much  for  King  Edward. 
He  could  bear  the  Scottish  insolences  no  longer,  and 
levied  an  army  of  a  hundred  thousand  to  invade  Scot- 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE          165 

land  in  August.  To  whet  his  appetite  for  revenge,  Bruce 
and  his  trusty  lieutenants,  Douglas  and  Randolph, 
marched  as  far  south  as  Preston,  slaying,  plundering, 
and  burning,  then  turned  and  marched  gaily  home 
with  their  spoil.  When  the  angry  English  King  and 
his  army  were,  after  many  delays,  in  battle  array, 
it  was  not  by  force  but  by  strategy  that  Bruce  met 
him.  For  many  miles  on  the  line  of  march  every 
head  of  cattle,  every  sack  of  corn,  everything  that 
the  invading  army  could  use  as  food,  was  driven  or 
carted  out  of  reach.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
Edward  wrote  that  he  '  found  neither  man  nor  beast.' 
At  Tranent,  in  East  Lothian,  a  foraging  party  at 
length  came  upon  one  lame  cow.  '  Certes,  it  is  the 
dearest  beef  I  ever  saw  yet,'  said  one  of  Edward's 
generals,  '  for  it  must  have  cost  £1000  or  more.' 

The  troops  suffered  from  famine  and  disease. 
Storms  beat  off  the  provision  ships  which  the  English 
army  wearily  awaited  at  Leith.  Three  dreary  days 
spent  in  Edinburgh  proved  too  much  for  Edward  n., 
who  never  shone  as  a  campaigner.  He  sacked 
Holyrood,  and  marched  south  to  Melrose,  intending 
to  enjoy  the  hospitality  of  the  abbey  there.  Three 
hundred  light  horse  were  sent  before  him  to  get  all 
in  readiness,  and  received  a  welcome  as  warm  as  it 
was  unexpected.  The  monks  had  a  sturdy  sentry, 
a  friar  on  horseback  armed  with  a  spear,  who  was 
ready  to  give  the  first  alarm  and  strike  the  first  blow, 


166  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

and  not  many  of  the  three  hundred  who  soon  heard  the 
Douglas  slogan  were  left  to  greet  their  king  when  he 
came.  4  Skirmish  Hill '  is  the  name  by  which  the 
scene  of  the  fight  is  still  known.  Edward's  exaspera- 
tion at  his  reception  knew  no  bounds.  The  tale  of 
the  fighting  monk  had  probably  reached  him,  and  his 
tender  mercy  was  consequently  cruel.  The  Prior, 
William  de  Peblis,  was  slain  in  cold  blood  in  the 
dormitory,  as  were  also  an  infirm  monk  and  two 
blind  brethren,  while  many  other  monks  were  mortally 
wounded.  The  army  did  its  best  to  destroy  the 
monastery,  and  most  thoroughly  pillaged  it.  They 
cast  down  the  host  from  the  high  altar,  stole  the 
silver  pyx,  and  marched  away  from  the  smoking 
desolation  of  Melrose  Abbey  to  Dryburgh,  where  they 
hoped  to  find  some  plunder  worth  having.  But  at 
Dryburgh  no  provisions  were  to  be  found,  and  they 
went  off  disconsolately  towards  Berwick.  Not  long 
were  they  gone,  however,  when  they  heard  the  White 
Brethren  pealing  their  bells  in  joy  and  thankfulness. 
It  was  more  than  they  could  brook.  Back  they  came, 
and  burned  the  abbey  to  the  ground. 

In  the  following  autumn,  at  Byland  in  Yorkshire, 
Bruce  and  his  generals  made  Edward  pay  handsomely 
for  these  ruined  abbeys.  Once  more  he  was  forced 
to  flee  ignominiously  before  a  conquering  Scottish 
army.  In  January  1327  that  most  unsuccessful  King 
of  England  abdicated,  and,  almost  at  once,  his  boy 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE         167 

successor,  Edward  HI.,  started  on  his  first  campaign, 
ready  to  avenge  many  a  deed  of  violence  committed 
by  Douglas  and  Randolph  and  their  raiders.  It 
was  a  sorrowful  campaign  for  the  little  king  with  his 
cumbrous  army  of  nearly  a  hundred  thousand  men. 
Like  tricky  wills-o'-the-wisp  the  seasoned  Scottish 
warriors  led  him  and  his  army  on,  through  marsh 
and  hilly  moorland.  '  At  that  time,'  says  Froissart, 
'  the  country  called  Northumberland  was  a  savage 
and  wild  country,  full  of  deserts  and  mountains.' 
In  dismal,  rainy  weather,  with  the  Tyne  in  spate, 
the  English  troops  and  their  allies — John  of  Hain- 
ault  led  a  contingent  of  two  thousand  five  hundred 
German  cavalry — starved,  shivered,  and  grumbled. 
Neither  by  night  nor  by  day  were  they  safe  from 
the  attacks  of  those  skilled  generals,  Douglas  and 
Randolph,  who  pounced  upon  them  like  eagles 
that  swoop  down  upon  lambs  from  out  the  clouds, 
slew,  and  vanished,  when  it  seemed  as  though  magic 
alone  could  spirit  them  away.  The  English  army 
had  gone  out  with  all  the  gorgeous  panoply  of  war. 
The  Scots  were  all  light  horse ;  the  knights  and  squires 
on  big  bays,  the  rank  and  file  on  hardy  hackneys 
that  required  no  grooming  nor  special  food.  Their 
method  of  campaigning  must  have  been  a  revelation 
to  the  hundred  volunteers  from  the  city  of  London 
— ancestors,  presumably,  of  the  gallant  C.I.V. — who 
helped  to  swell  the  English  army.  Says  Froissart 


168  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

of  the  Scots :  '  They  take  with  them  no  purveyance 
of  bread  nor  wine,  for  their  usage  and  soberness 
is  such  in  time  of  war  that  they  will  pass  in  the 
journey  a  great  long  time  with  flesh  half  sodden 
without  bread,  and  drink  of  the  river  water  without 
wine ;  and  they  neither  care  for  pots  nor  pans,  for 
they  seethe  beasts  in  their  own  skins.  They  are 
ever  sure  to  find  plenty  of  beasts  in  the  country  that 
they  will  pass  through ;  therefore  they  carry  with 
them  none  other  purveyance,  but  on  their  horse 
between  the  saddle  and  the  panel  they  truss  a  broad 
plate  of  metal,  and  behind  the  saddle  they  have  a 
little  sack  full  of  oatmeal,  to  the  intent  that  when  they 
have  eaten  of  the  sodden  flesh,  then  they  lay  this 
plate  on  the  fire  and  temper  a  little  of  the  oatmeal ; 
and  when  the  plate  is  hot,  they  cast  off  the  thin  paste 
thereon,  and  so  make  a  little  cake,  in  manner  of 
a  cracknel  or  biscuit,  and  that  they  eat  to  com- 
fort withal  their  stomachs.  Wherefore  it  is  no  great 
marvel  though  they  make  greater  journeys  than  other 
people  do.' 

When,  by  a  brilliant  piece  of  strategy,  the  Scots 
broke  up  camp  and  crossed  the  Border  just  when 
their  foes  fancied  that  they  had  them  safely  in  their 
hands,  the  English  found  a  curious  medley  of  things 
left  behind.  '  They  found  only  five  hundreth  car- 
casses of  red  and  fallow  Deare,  a  thousand  pairs  of 
Highland  showes  called  rullions,  made  of  raw  and 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE         169 

untand  leather,  three  hundreth  hides  of  beasts  set 
on  stakes,  which  served  for  Caldrons  to  seethe  their 
meat.  There  were  also  five  English  men  who  had 
their  legs  broken,  and  were  bound  naked  to  trees, 
whom  they  loosed  and  gave  them  to  Chirurgions 
to  bee  cured.' 

The  little  king,  it  is  said,  burst  into  tears  when  he 
had  to  go  home  to  his  mother,  feeling  that  by  his  first 
campaign  he  had  only  furnished  sport  for  Douglas 
and  his  light  brigade. 

One  year  later  and,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life, 
Douglas,  the  watch-dog  of  the  Marches,  appeared 
as  a  friend  to  England.  Peace  between  England 
and  Scotland  was  arranged  by  the  Treaty  of  North- 
ampton, and  a  visible  seal  was  put  upon  it  by  the 
marriage  of  Prince  David — '  Young  Davy,'  as  an  old 
chronicler  calls  him — with  the  Princess  Joanna,  sister 
of  Edward  in.  The  bridegroom  was  four :  the 
bride  had  reached  the  mature  age  of  six,  and  great 
and  gorgeous  were  their  wedding  feasts  and  rejoicings 
at  Berwick-on-Tweed.  With  a  noble  retinue  '  young 
Davy '  rode  from  Culross  to  Berwick,  with  halts  at 
Lanark  and  Stow,  a  three  days'  ride.  He  must  have 
been  a  sturdy  little  boy  if  he  was  not  dead  tired  by 
the  time  he  rode  under  the  '  Scots'  Gate.'  From 
Berwick  he  and  his  party  rode  out  to  Coldingham 
Priory,  and  there  held  a  feast  where  six  bullocks 
were  devoured.  Long  before  the  Prior  and  monks 


170  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

of  Coldingham,  and  Douglas  and  Randolph  and  the 
other  knights  had  come  to  an  end  of  eating  and 
drinking,  we  can  fancy  little  '  Davy,'  wearing  the  fine 
silver  chain  and  seal  that  was  his  father's  wedding 
present  to  him,  drowsily  nodding  on  his  royal  chair, 
the  voices  of  the  revellers  mingling  with  the  crash  of 
the  sea  on  the  rocks  and  the  wail  of  the  seamews  on 
the  cliffs  of  St.  Abbs,  until  it  all  became  a  strange 
sound  in  a  little  child's  dream. 

The  Bruce  was  then  on  his  deathbed  and  could 
not  come  to  the  wedding;  but  when  the  prince 
returned  to  Culross  with  his  little  bride,  c  The  King 
made  them  fair  welcoming,'  says  the  chronicler. 
King  Robert  was  setting  his  house  in  order.  In 
every  possible  way  he  arranged  for  the  welfare  and 
prosperity  of  his  son,  his  subjects,  and  of  the  country 
by  him  so  hardly  won,  and  now  so  dearly  loved.  To 
Prince  David  he  wrote  a  letter  specially  commending 
to  his  care  the  monks  of  Melrose  and  their  monastery, 
already  nobly  restored,  and  asking  that  his  heart 
should  be  buried  before  the  high  altar.  As  dying 
men  often  do,  he  changed  his  mind  before  the  end, 
and  to  Froissart  we  owe  the  storv  of  his  commission  to 

•f 

the  Good  Lord  James.  As  death  drew  near,  he  sent 
for  the  Black  Douglas  and  '  for  such  barons  and  lords 
of  his  realm  as  he  trusted  best.'  To  Sir  James — 
4  Sir  James '  since  he  was  knighted  on  the  field  of 
Bannockburn — he  said  :  '  Sir  James,  my  dear  friend, 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE         171 

ye  know  well  that  I  have  had  much  ado  in  my  days 
to  uphold  and  sustain  the  right  of  this  realm  ;  and 
when  I  had  most  ado,  I  made  a  solemn  vow,  the 
which  as  yet  I  have  not  accomplished,  whereof  I  am 
right  sorry  :  the  which  was,  if  I  might  achieve  and 
make  an  end  of  all  my  wars,  so  that  I  might  once  have 
brought  this  realm  in  rest  and  peace,  then  I  promised 
in  my  mind  to  have  gone  and  warred  on  Christ's 
enemies,  adversaries  to  our  holy  Christian  faith.  To 
this  purpose  mine  heart  hath  ever  intended,  but  our 
Lord  would  not  consent  thereto,  for  I  have  had  so 
much  ado  in  my  days,  and  now  in  my  last  enterprise 
I  have  taken  such  a  malady  that  I  cannot  escape.' 
He  then  directed  that  on  his  death  his  heart  should 
be  taken  from  his  body  and  embalmed,  and  he  asked 
the  Black  Douglas,  '  mine  own  dear  especial  friend,' 
that  he  would  take  it  with  him  to  Palestine  and  lay 
it  in  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  4  where  our  Lord  lay.' 
'  Then  all  the  lords  that  heard  these  words  wept  for 
pity,  and  when  this  knight,  Sir  James  Douglas,  might 
speak  for  weeping,  he  said,  "  Ah,  gentle  and  noble 
king,  a  hundred  times  I  thank  your  Grace  of  the  great 
honour  that  ye  do  to  me,  since  of  so  noble  and  great 
treasure  ye  give  me  the  charge,  and,  sir,  I  shall  do  with 
a  glad  heart  all  that  ye  have  commanded  me,  to  the 
best  of  my  true  power ;  howbeit  I  am  not  worthy 
nor  sufficient  to  achieve  such  a  noble  enterprise." 
Then  the  king  said,  "Ah,  gentle  knight,  I  thank  you,  so 


172  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

that  ye  will  promise  to  do  it."  "  Sir,"  said  the  knight, 
"  I  shall  do  it  undoubtedly,  by  the  faith  that  I  owe  to 
God  and  to  the  order  of  knighthood."  "  Then  I  thank 
you,"  said  the  king,  "  for  now  shall  I  die  in  more  ease 
of  my  mind,  since  I  know  that  the  most  worthy  and 
sufficient  knight  of  my  realm  shall  achieve  for  me  that 
which  I  could  never  attain  unto."  On  June  7,  1329, 
when  sunny  mornings  must  have  carried  the  Bruce's 
thoughts  back  to  that  midsummer  day  at  Bannock- 
burn,  the  sufferings  that  he  had  borne  so  unflinchingly 
came  to  an  end.  '  There  was  no  way  with  him  but 
death,'  says  Froissart.  '  He  was,  beyond  all  living 
men  of  his  day,  a  valiant  knight,'  says  another 
chronicler. 

In  February  1330  the  Black  Douglas,  with  a  noble 
company,  set  sail  for  the  Holy  Land.  The  heart 
of  Bruce,  in  a  silver  casket  cunningly  enamelled,  he 
bore  round  his  neck  by  a  string  of  silk  and  gold.  In 
Spain  he  stopped,  and  at  Seville  received  a  princely 
welcome  from  Alfonso  of  Castile  and  his  court.  One 
famed  Spanish  warrior,  his  face  scarred  with  many 
an  old  wound,  looked  with  surprise  at  the  Douglas's 
smooth  brown  face. 

4  Ye  have  been  in  so  many  fights,'  said  he  ;  '  how 
comes  this  miracle,  that  you  have  escaped  with  never 
a  scar  ?  ' 

*  Praised  be  God ! '  said  Douglas,  '  I  always  had 
hands  to  defend  my  head.' 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE         173 

The  King  of  Castile  and  the  Moors  of  Granada 
were  then  at  war,  and  it  was  not  possible  for  a  knight 
of  the  stamp  of  James  Douglas  to  sail  on  without 
drawing  his  sword  against  the  Paynim  in  the  cause 
of  a  Christian  King — 

' "  Now  shame  it  were/'  cried  good  Lord  James, 
"  Shall  never  be  said  of  me, 
That  I  and  mine  have  turned  aside 
From  the  Cross  in  jeopardie. 
Have  down,  have  down,  my  merry  men  all — 
Have  down  unto  the  plain ; 
We  '11  let  the  Scottish  lion  loose 
Within  the  fields  of  Spain  !  " 

On  August  25,  1330,  the  Spanish  army  met  the 
Moors  in  battle. 

The  advance  was  sounded,  and  Douglas,  mistaking 
it  for  a  general  attack,  galloped  forward  with  his 
men  in  furious  charge.  '  Allah  !  illah  !  Allah  !  ' 
came  the  fierce  cry  from  many  a  Saracen  throat. 

4  A  Douglas  !  a  Douglas  !  '  shouted  the  men  of 
the  Border.  Outnumbered  and  surrounded  by  the 
Saracens,  the  fiercest  fighters  then  on  earth,  and 
with  no  backing  from  their  Spanish  allies,  the  Douglas 
and  his  followers  had  no  chance.  Yet  with  the 
supreme  luck  that  was  ever  his  own,  even  from  that 
dire  fight  Douglas  might  have  escaped  had  he  not 
seen  his  friend,  Sir  William  St.  Clair  of  Roslin,  in  sore 
peril,  and  pressed  forward  to  help  him.  On  every 
side  of  him  were  the  swarthy  faces  of  the  Moslems, 


174  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

around  him  his  bravest  men  lay  slain.  Far,  far  away 
was  the  valley  of  Yarrow,  the  peaceful  tower  up  the 
Douglas  Burn.  Many  a  less  worthy  Borderer  since 
his  day  has  seen,  as  death  laid  upon  him  a  compelling 
hand,  the  '  sedate,  serious,  broad-shouldered  Border 
hills ' ;  has  heard  the  song,  as  of  a  soothing  mother 
voice,  of  Tweed  and  Ettrick  and  Yarrow. 

1  Allah  !  il'  Allah  !  '  triumphantly  came  the  war- 
cry  of  the  bloodthirsty  host. 

There  was  for  him,  as  for  the  Bruce,  '  no  way  but 
death.'  Before  him,  where  the  fight  was  fiercest, 
he  cast  the  precious  relic  of  his  king  and  comrade. 
1  Pass  first  in  fight,  as  thou  wert  wont  to  do ! '  he  cried. 
4  Douglas  will  follow  thee  or  die  ! ' 

They  found  him  lying  dead  on  the  field  where 
the  slain  were  thickest — in  death,  as  in  life,  sheltering 
with  his  body  the  heart  of  his  friend. 

In  St.  Bride's  Church  of  Douglas,  Lord  James, 
4  in  his  day  a  brave  hammerer  of  the  English,'  now 
lies  at  rest;  and  at  Melrose,  where  once  stood  the 
high  altar  of  the  abbey  that  he  loved,  there  rests 
the  heart  of  a  king. 

Like  a  great  storm  the  War  of  Independence  had 
swept  over  Scotland.  One  hundred  and  thirty-seven 
castles  north  of  the  Cheviots  were  destroyed  by 
Robert  the  Bruce  after  the  death  of  Edward  i. 
Scotland  had  won  her  freedom  ;  she  had  tasted  power. 
More  than  that,  she  had  tasted  blood,  and  on  the 


THE  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE        175 

Border  it  was  a  thirst  that  for  many  a  year  to  come 
was  never  satiated.  Almost  did  it  seem  as  though 
upon  the  people  of  that  hilly  land  there  had  fallen 
the  curse :  '  Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man 
shall  his  blood  be  shed.' 


176  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   REIVERS 

O  they  rade  in  the  rain,  in  the  days  that  are  gane, 

In  the  rain  and  the  wind  and  the  lave. 
They  shoutit  in  the  ha'  and  they  routit  on  the  hill., 

But  they  're  a'  quaitit  noo  in  the  grave. 

R.  L.  STEVENSON. 

IN  all  times,  and  even  in  these  prosaic  twentieth- 
century  days  of  ours,  when  we  are  told  that  Romance 
is  dead,  and  that  dull,  hard-headed  Utilitarianism 
reigns  in  her  stead,  Courage  and  Lawlessness  (so 
frequently  the  disreputable  companion  of  Courage) 
are  things  that  seldom  fail  to  find  a  responsive  echo 
in  the  heart  of  youth.  The  doings  of  Robin  Hood, 
the  reckless  bravery  of  the  gentlemen  of  the  road, 
are  always  popular  themes.  In  our  Australian  colonies 
we  find  that  the  bushranger  has  never  been  without 
his  admirers.  And  on  our  own  Scottish  Border  we 
have  to  acknowledge  that,  although  youth  may  be 
left  far  behind  us,  there  is  no  period  in  our  history 
that  appeals  to  us  more,  because  it  still  can  make  our 
blood  run  faster,  still  can  give  the  echo  of  the  jingle 
of  spurs,  the  lowing  of  kye — can  let  us  see  the  moss- 
troopers driving  home  their  spoil  in  the  '  lee  licht  o' 


THE  REIVERS  177 

the  mune,' — than  the  most  reckless,  most  law-defying 
time  of  all  Border  history,  the  years  of  the  reign  of 
the  Border  reiver.  The  reiver  fought  hard,  drank 
hard,  loved  as  he  fought  and  drank.  He  was  as 
good  and  true  a  friend  as  he  was  a  fierce  and  bitter 
enemy.  He  was  never  one  to  turn  his  cheek  to  the 
smiter,  but  rarely  did  he  turn  his  back  on  a  follower 
or  a  friend.  Shamed  was  a  whole  clan  when  one  of 
its  name  broke  faith  with  friend  or  with  foe.  The 
injured  man  had  only  to  ride  to  the  first  Border 
meeting  and,  glove  on  lance-point,  proclaim  aloud 
the  baseness  of  a  broken  word.  Quickly  the  clan  saw 
to  it,  and  the  blood  of  the  perjurer  wiped  out  the 
stain  on  a  gallant  name. 

To  the  arm-chair  critic,  that  may  seem  a  time  of 
misdirected  chivalry,  of  brave  deeds  wrongly  done, 
of  breaches  of  all  the  commandments  of  God  and  of 
man.  Yet  there  is  surely  no  true  son  of  the  Border 
who,  in  his  inmost  heart,  is  not  proud  when  he  can 
claim  descent  from  one  of  those  who  raided  the 
Marches  in  the  long-ago  days. 

On  the  Scottish  Border  there  was  never  a  time  when 
England  ceased  to  be  regarded  as  an  enemy.  As  long 
as  that  blue  line  of  Cheviots  was  in  sight,  Scot  and 
Englishman  hated  one  another,  and  it  was  the 
Borderer's  part  never  to  allow  Scotland's  c  auld 
enemy  '  to  forget  that  the  Scots  were  an  independent 
nation,  their  country  a  free  land. 

M 


178  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

In  1593  when,  ostensibly,  there  was  peace  between 
the  two  countries,  Sir  Robert  Carey,  English  governor 
of  Berwick,  writes  :  c  We  have  no  prison  here  but 
Haddocke's  Hole,  a  very  bad  prison,  only  for  thieves 
and  murtherers ;  a  very  loathesome  place.'  But  he 
had  no  scruple  in  committing  to  Haddocke's  Hole 
the  master  of  a  boat  laden  with  salt,  for  no  other 
crime  than  for  being  a  Scot  and  for  taking  a  walk 
round  the  walls.  He  pried  and  looked  '  verie  circum- 
speclie  as  he  walked,'  says  Carey,  who  further  adds 
that  his  intention  is  to  keep  him  in  prison  until  the 
powers  that  be  in  London  shall  decide  his  fate — 
4  for  he  was  very  brave  and  stout  with  the  officers 
that  took  him.'  To  Haddocke's  Hole  also  were 
committed  the  Scottish  *  pledges,'  reivers  of  good 
family  from  the  valleys  of  Teviot  and  Tweed  and 
Liddel — Pringles,  Rutherfurds,  Elliots,  Armstrongs, 
and  others — after  some  of  their  number  had  broken 
ward  from  prison  at  York.  *  Thieves  and  mur- 
therers '  all,  were  they  in  English  eyes. 

Who  can  wonder  that,  even  so  late  as  in  1811,  a 
favourite  game  of  Northumbrian  boys  was  one  called 
*  Beggarly  Scot,' — a  game  of  reiving  and  fighting  and 
imprisonment  and  fierce  retaliation.  And,  to  this 
day,  as  long  as  the  Cheviots  are  within  hail,  national 
animosity  seems  to  find  a  place  in  the  hearts  of  those 
whom  years  have  still  to  teach  the  true  meaning  of 
the  title  '  Great  Britain,'  and  the  pride  of  Empire. 


THE  REIVERS  179 

In  Edinburgh  and  farther  north,  when  David  of 
Scotland  had  married  an  English  queen,  and  the 
Treaty  of  Northampton  had  apparently  promised  a 
perpetual  amnesty,  men  might  have  a  chance  of 
believing  themselves  to  be  at  peace  with  England. 
From  Solway  sands  to  where  Tweed  joins  the  sea, 
there  was  never  such  a  chance.  There  were  constant 
little  explosions  of  national  feeling,  leading  to  blood- 
shed on  lonely  moor  or  in  silent  valley,  or  to  shameful 
death  at  Carlisle  or  in  Edinburgh. 

In  later  days  '  Border  thieves  '  was  the  name  given 
to  the  raiders,  yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
Scot  who  risked  his  life  by  riding  over  the  Border 
to  despoil  the  English  had,  originally,  not  only  the 
gratification  of  securing  for  himself  and  his  country- 
men much-needed  loot,  but  felt  also  an  ennobling  glow 
of  real  patriotism.  He  was  spoiling  the  Egyptians, 
striking  a  blow  at  the  hated  enemy  of  the  country 
that  he  loved.  As  he  and  his  men  rode  up  the  Rede 
valley  or  crossed  the  Carter  on  their  homeward  way, 
they  could  feel  that  there  were  two  or  three  fewer 
Englishmen  left  in  the  world,  and,  for  the  English, 
certainly  less  worldly  wealth.  With  patriotism  as  a 
mainspring,  reiving  became  a  profession  to  which 
not  only  no  shame  attached,  but  which  brought  much 
credit  in  the  event  of  a  successful  raid.  Hence  it  is 
that  for  the  records  of  the  chief  Border  families  one 
must  go  not  to  the  pages  of  Burke  and  Debrett,  but 


180  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

to  Pitcairn's  Criminal  Trials.  No  true  Borderer  would 
ever  blush  to  own  that,  as  one  of  his  quarterings,  he 
might  bear  a  gallows  rampant. 

A  crescent  of  stars  appears  in  many  a  Border  coat 
of  arms.  Reparabit  Cornua  Phoebe, '  We  '11  have  moon- 
light again,'  is  the  motto,  freely  construed,  of  the  house 
of  Harden ;  Luna  Cornua  Reparabit,  '  The  moon  will 
replenish  our  coffers,'  that  of  Buccleuch;  and  Crescendo 
Prosim,  'May  I  do  good  as  the  moon  rises,'  is  the 
equally  suggestive  one  of  the  old  house  of  the  Scotts 
of  Sinton.  Border  cavaliers  of  those  days  were 
indeed  '  gentlemen  of  the  night,  minions  of  the  moon.' 
Says  Scott  of  Satchells,  worthy  son  of  a  brave  Border 
house,  and  gallant  defender  of  the  freebooting  clan 
of  which  he  was  proud  to  be  a  member : — 

'  For  all  Frontiers,  and  Borders,  I  observe, 
Wherever  they  lie,  are  Free-booters, 
And  does  the  enemy  much  more  harms, 
Than  fifteen  thousand  marshal-men  in  arms  ; 
The  Free-booters  venture  both  life  and  limb, 
Good  wife  and  bairn,  and  every  other  thing ; 
He  must  do  so,  or  else  must  starve  and  die  ; 
For  all  his  lively-hood  comes  of  the  enemie  : 
His  substance,  being,  and  his  house  most  tight, 
Yet  he  may  chance  to  lose  all  in  a  night ; 
Being  driven  to  poverty,  he  must  needs  a  free-booter  be, 
Yet  for  vulgar  calumnies  there  is  no  remedie : 
An  arrant  liar  calls  a  free-booter  a  thief, 
A  free-booter  may  be  many  a  man's  relief: 
A  free-booter  will  offer  no  man  wrong, 
Nor  will  take  none  at  any  hand  ; 


THE  REIVERS  181 

He  spoils  more  enemies  now  and  then, 
Than  many  hundreds  of  your  marshal-men : 
Near  to  a  border  frontier  in  time  of  war, 
There 's  ne'er  a  man  but  he 's  a  free-booter.' 

Up  the  valleys,  up  the  '  hopes,'  and  the  glens  of 
the  Border,  we  find  the  roofless  ruins  of  the  peel 
towers  that  were  the  reivers'  strongholds,  like  lonely 
sentinels  watching  for  the  approach  of  a  danger  that 
has  long  since  ceased  to  be. 

They  are  chiefly  three-storied :  the  upper  stories, 
with  their  slits  for  windows  and  wide  chimneys 
where  jackdaws  and  starlings  now  have  their  nests, 
containing  the  little  living-rooms  of  their  owners, 
while  the  lowest  story  furnished  a  byre  for  the  cattle 
in  wintry  weather  or  in  dangerous  times.  The 
barmkyn,  a  surrounding  thick  wall  enclosing  a  large 
courtyard  in  front  of  the  tower,  had  a  strong  outer 
door  of  oak  studded  with  broad-headed  nails,  and 
an  innermost  one  of  grated  iron,  fit  to  withstand  the 
assaults  of  an  importunate  enemy,  and  outside  this 
were  the  cottages  of  the  retainers.  Cattle  below, 
glassless  windows  that  let  in  little  sunlight — com- 
petent ventilators  only  when  winter  winds  drove 
the  sleet  before  them,  seeking  access  at  every  chink 
and  taking  no  refusal — the  peel  towers  strike  us  now 
as  being  the  stuffiest  and  most  unfragrant  of  baronial 
halls.  Yet  from  these  window  slits  and  from  the 
bartizan,  or  from  the  flat  roof  of  the  tower,  the  dwellers 


182  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

could  look  across  heather-purpled  moor  and  hill.  The 
shrill  of  the  whaup,  the  wail  of  the  pewit,  and  the  crow 
of  the  grouse  were  almost  the  only  sounds  to  break 
the  peace  of  their  solitude,  save  when  the  lowing 
of  driven  cattle  and  clatter  of  horses'  hoofs  told  of 
the  successful  return  from  a  raid.  From  their  peels 
those  reivers  and  their  folk  could  watch  the  wildfowl 
winging  their  way  from  reedy  marsh  to  lonely  loch, 
and  could  see  in  the  sunlight  the  silver  glint  of  rivers 
that  murmured  their  song  under  the  great  trees  of 
primeval  forest.  And  if  the  windows  were  too  tiny 
to  admit  of  much  of  the  scent  of  heather,  bog  myrtle, 
and  bracken  ascending  to  the  living-rooms  of  the  tower, 
some  of  the  freshness  of  the  glorious  uplands  was  yet 
to  be  found  in  the  rooms  which  had  for  a  carpet  the 
sweet,  benty  grass  of  the  moor,  boughs  of  the  birch,  or 
rushes  from  the  burnside,  mingled  with  wild  thyme, 
heather,  or  the  fragrant  yellow  bedstraw.  When  the 
Black  Douglas  and  the  Bishop  of  St.  Andrews  visited 
Robert  the  Bruce  at  his  royal  castle  at  Tarbet,  the  sum 
of  2s.  2d.  was  what  it  cost  him  for  birchen  boughs 
with  which  to  strew  the  chamber  floors  of  his  guests. 
If  the  peel  towers  and  Border  castles  had  more  the 
appearance  of  fortresses  than  of  residences  of  men  of 
family,  this  was  only  natural.  For  many  centuries, 
from  long  before  the  reign  of  Bruce,  until  '  King 
Jamie  '  had  long  time  been  ruler  of  the  two  kingdoms, 
those  who  lived  within  riding  distance  from  England 


THE  REIVERS  183 

could  have  had  no  more  sense  of  security  than  a  man 
might  have  whose  house  was  built  within  reach  of 
the  tides  of  a  turbulent  sea.  During  Elizabeth's 
reign  a  proposal  with  regard  to  the  refortification  of 
the  old  Roman  Wall—4  The  Pightes  Wall  .  .  .  which 
was  made  by  the  Romaynes  ' — was  seriously  con- 
sidered by  the  queen  and  her  ministers.  Nothing 
short  of  that  would  have  stemmed — if,  indeed,  that 
would  have  stemmed  it — the  constant,  almost  daily 
invasion  that  for  months  and  years  went  steadily 
on.  It  must  have  been  impossible  in  those  times 
for  any  woman  on  either  side  of  the  Border  to  retire 
to  bed  without  the  consciousness  that  her  slumbers 
might  be  rudely  broken  into  by  midnight  alarums 
and  excursions.  On  both  sides  of  the  Border  constant 
vigilance  was  necessary  to  keep  Scots  and  English 
reivers  peaceably  on  their  own  side  of  the  Cheviots. 
Sentinels,  usually  accompanied  by  bloodhounds,  were 
posted  night  and  day  at  certain  passes  on  the  English 
side.  By  Border  law  a  raider  might  be  pursued  for 
six  days  into  the  opposite  kingdom — hunted  '  hot- 
trod,'  with  bloodhounds  and  sounding  of  hunting 
horns,  and  with  the  pursuers  carrying  lighted  pieces 
of  turf  on  their  spears'  points — and  punished  there 
and  then  at  the  discretion  of  the  captors. 

'  On  darksome  night, 
In  fierce  Hot-trod,  with  panting  breath, 
Men  press'd  the  reiver  in  his  track, 
And  left  him  done  to  bloody  death.' 


184  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

On  the  top  of  almost  every  peel — by  Act  of  the 
Scottish  Parliament  of  1455 — was  an  iron  basket 
holding  the  bale  l  fire,  or  need-fire ;  and  on  many  a 
hill  was  yet  another  form  of  beacon,  '  a  long  and 
strong  tree,  set  up  with  a  long  iron  pole  across  the 
head  of  it,  and  an  iron  brander  fixed  on  the  stalk 
in  the  middle  of  it  for  holding  a  tar  barrel.'  By 
day  and  by  night  the  silent  signal  could  be  sent  speed- 
ing along  the  Border  with  all  the  rapidity  of  a  telegram. 
A  cloud  of  black  smoke  by  day,  red  flames  at  night, 
would  arm  and  mount  every  fighting  man  of  Tweed- 
dale  and  Teviotdale,  of  Ettrick  and  of  Yarrow,  and 
of  all  the  valleys  and  glens  of  the  Border.  As  many 
as  ten  thousand  armed  men  have  mustered  at  day- 
break at  a  single  meeting-place. 

There  is  in  Liddesdale  a  tradition  that  the  first 
person  who  discovered  the  approach  of  the  English 
had  to  cover  a  bush  or  tree  on  some  rising  ground 
with  a  white  cloth  or  sheet.  Like  the  beacon  signal, 
this  signal  was  also  repeated  and  repeated  until 
those  snowy  patches  had  passed  on  the  news  to  all 
the  fighting  men  of  Liddesdale. 

When  the  signal  of  invasion  was  given  from  peel 
tower  or  from  hill  top,  the  neighbouring  peasantry 
had  the  right  to  seek  shelter  for  themselves,  their 
families,  their  '  kye,'  and  any  portable  possessions 

1  Anglo-Saxon,  bael,  funeral  pile ;   nyd,  force,  fyr,  fire.     Originally  fire 
produced  by  the  friction  of  two  pieces  of  wood. 


THE  REIVERS  185 

that  they  held  dear,  within  the  walls  of  the  nearest 
castle  or  peel.  At  Bamborough  the  approach  of  the 
Scots  meant  the  flight  of  the  villagers  with  their 
cattle  and  all  their  worldly  goods  up  the  steep  cliff 
road  to  the  castle  of  their  feudal  lord.  Even  the 
beams  of  their  houses  they  carried  with  them,  for 
constant  '  herschips  '  and  burnings  meant  that  wood 
became  a  rather  scarce  and  valuable  commodity. 

Had  it  been  only  from  the  hands  of  English 
monarchs  that  the  Scottish  raiders  had  to  expect 
the  punishment  of  their  lawless  deeds,  their  lives 
had  been  better  worth  a  purchase  than  they  actually 
were.  But  while,  in  times  of  war,  the  Borderer 
was  found  by  Scottish  rulers  to  be  a  most  useful 
instrument  for  keeping  up  a  constant  state  of  irritation 
between  the  two  countries,  in  times  of  peace — so- 
called — the  Borderer  was  a  convenient  scapegoat. 
Had  England's  dignity  been  insulted,  had  the  peace 
and  safety  of  a  gracious  English  monarch's  faithful 
subjects  been  endangered,  then  there  was  bloody 
justice  dealt  on  the  Borderer  who  had  dared  to  affront 
the  friend  and  cousin  of  the  Scottish  king.  *  Jethart 
Justice,'  hanging  first,  trial  afterwards,  was  the  phrase, 
now  a  proverb,  originally  used  when  Jedburgh  first 
saw  a  batch  of  moss-troopers  summarily  put  to  death 
to  maintain  the  peace  of  nations.  But  a  hanging 
in  the  morning  did  not,  as  a  rule,  lead  to  immediate 
amendment  of  conduct  on  the  part  of  the  survivors 


186  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

of  the  clan.  Were  moon  and  weather  favourable 
for  a  foray,  some  law-abiding  lieges  of  England  or  of 
Scotland  were  made  that  very  night  to  pay  for  the 
deaths  of  the  dead  raiders.  '  The  Borderers  were, 
in  truth,'  says  Sir  Walter  Scott,  '  during  the  time  of 
peace,  a  kind  of  outcasts,  against  whom  the  united 
powers  of  England  and  Scotland  were  often  employed. 
Hence,  the  men  of  the  Borders  had  little  attachment 
to  their  monarchs,  whom  they  termed  in  derision, 
the  Kings  of  Fife  and  Lothian  ;  provinces  which  they 
were  not  legally  entitled  to  inhabit,  and  which,  there- 
fore, they  pillaged  with  as  little  remorse  as  if  they 
belonged  to  a  foreign  country.'  Every  now  and 
again,  through  the  centuries,  a  royal  hand  would  be 
raised  in  menace  against  the  Borderers,  and  unless 
there  was  a  rapid  check  from  within  to  their  forays 
and  fightings  (and  but  rarely  did  that  come  about), 
the  menace  was  followed  by  a  punitive  expedition. 
In  1510  the  clan  Turnbull  had  kicked  over  all  traces, 
and  by  night-march  James  rv.  arrived  unexpectedly  at 
Jedburgh.  Willy  nilly  the  clan  had  to  appear  before 
the  king  up  their  valley  of  the  Rule,  and  there 
two  hundred  of  them,  naked  swords  in  their  hands, 
but  each  with  a  halter  round  his  neck,  had  to  cry 
Peccavi.  Some  were  hanged  there  and  then,  many 
were  imprisoned,  and  the  rest  were  solemnly  bound 
over  to  keep  the  peace. 

The  hunting  expedition   of  James  iv.'s  successor, 


THE  REIVERS  187 

James  v.,  when  he  had  for  quarry  some  of  the  most 
gallant  Scots  on  the  Border,  has  been  commemorated 
by  more  than  one  of  the  ballads.  In  the  year  1530 
James  felt  that  he  must  lay  hold  of  the  more  turbulent 
spirits  on  the  Border  with  a  firm  hand.  The  lords  of 
Buccleuch,  Bothwell,  Ker,  Home,  Maxwell,  and  other 
Border  chiefs,  he  put  in  prison  as  causes  of  disquietude 
in  the  regions  they  reigned  over.  With  a  force  of 
eight  thousand  men  he  took  his  way  from  Edinburgh 
to  Yarrow,  where  he  allayed  the  suspicions  of  the 
reivers  by  hunting  in  Meggatdale.  '  Aughteine  scoir  of 
deir  '  were  slain,  and  that  in  the  month  of  June,  when 
no  true  sportsman  would  have  hunted  harts  on  whose 
horns  the  velvet  was  still  thick  and  tender.  Much 
small  game  also  fell  to  his  hawks,  and  the  march 
went  triumphantly  on  by  what  is  still  known  as  the 
King's  Road,  from  St.  Mary's  Loch,  past  the  Loch  o' 
the  Lowes,  into  Ettrick,  and  on  into  Teviotdale  by 
way  of  Bellenden  Moor.  Ballad  and  tradition  tell 
us  that  in  Yarrow  the  royal  hunter  turned  aside 
at  Henderland  Tower  to  hang  a  noted  freebooter, 
Cockburn  of  Henderland,  over  his  own  gate.  Near 
the  ruins  of  the  Tower,  where  a  brawling  mountain 
burn  rushes  through  the  rocky  '  Dow  Linn,'  and  falls 
down  for  twenty  feet,  there  is  still  pointed  out  the 
'  Lady's  Seat '  where,  so  they  say,  the  lady  of  Hen- 
derland fled  to  escape  the  sight  of  her  husband's 
murder ;  and  the  '  Border  Widow's  Lament '  tells  the 


188  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

tale  of   her    piteous    loneliness   and  of   her   broken 
heart. 

'  I  took  his  body  on  my  back, 
And  whiles  I  gaed  and  whiles  I  sat ; 
I  digg'd  a  grave,  and  laid  him  in, 
And  happ'd  him  wi'  the  sod  sae  green. 
•  •  •  •  • 

Nae  living  man  I  '11  lo'e  again, 
Since  that  my  lovely  knight  is  slain, 
Wi'  ae  lock  of  his  yellow  hair 
I  '11  chain  my  heart  for  evermair.* 

Near  the  Tower  of  Henderland  is  a  large  stone 
graven  with  a  cross,  sword,  and  shield.  '  Here  lyis 
Perys  de  Cokburne  and  hys  wife  Marjory '  is  the 
inscription,  and  in  the  minds  of  the  country-folk 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  stone  marks  the  grave  of 
the  betrayed  reiver  and  his  widow.  The  historical 
records  that  the  raider's  name  was  William,  that  he 
was  not  hanged  but  beheaded,  and  that  his  execution 
took  place  in  Edinburgh,  are  provoking  facts  to  true 
lovers  of  romance. 

From  Henderland,  tradition  also  tells  us,  the  royal 
hunting  party  passed  on  to  Tushielaw,  there  to  seize 
4  Adie  Scot  of  Tuschielaw,'  known  as  '  The  King  of 
Thieves,'  and  hang  him  on  his  own  *  Hanging  Tree,' 
an  old  ash  which,  until  recent  years,  still  withstood 
wind  and  weather.  Here,  again,  solid  fact  interferes 
with  romance,  for  his  hanging  tree  had  already  borne 
its  last  crop  of  ripe  fruit,  and  Adam  Scott  had  been 


THE  REIVERS  189 

tried  and  beheaded  in  Edinburgh  and  his  head  stuck 
up  to  bleach  on  the  Tolbooth  a  month  before  the 
raid  of  the  king. 

If  James  v.  was  King  of  Fife  and  the  Lothians,  and 
if  the  Marches  were  ruled  by  nobles  whose  sway  was 
almost  royal,  there  was  then  a  monarch  on  the 
Border  whose  kingship  was  no  empty  title,  and  whose 
crown  had  not  been  lightly  won.  Johnny  Armstrong 
was,  indeed,  a  raider,  but  he  was  one  who  fought  for 
his  country  as  well  as  for  his  own  pocket  and  his  own 
clan,  nor  did  he  bow  the  knee  to  any  man  save  to 
his  rightful  sovereign,  James,  King  of  Scots.  Again 
and  again  had  the  English  suffered  at  his  hand.  His 
name  carried  terror  with  it  to  those  on  the  English 
side.  With  Johnny  and  his  men  barring  the  entrance- 
gate  to  Scotland  there  was  no  possibility  of  any 
English  force  compelling  its  way  through  that  south- 
western corner  of  the  Border.  Nor  was  it  only  in 
his  special  portion  of  the  Debateable  Land,  where  the 
gaunt  brown  gables  of  his  castle  of  Gilnockie  still 
look  down  over  the  trees  on  the  Esk  as  it  swiftly  flows 
by,  that  Johnny  was  a  potentate.  As  far  as  New- 
castle he  levied  his  tribute,  and  Border  Scots  honoured, 
Englishmen  feared,  his  name.  To  the  best  of  his 
light  he  was  an  honest  man.  His  code  of  honour  was 
the  code  of  the  aristocratic  reiver.  England  was  the 
enemy  of  himself,  his  country,  and  his  king.  England 
must  and  should,  accordingly,  suffer.  What  he  did, 


190  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

he  did  openly  and  magnificently.  There  was  no 
concealment  of  the  blackmail  which  was  one  of  the 
chief  sources  of  his  revenue.  To  those  who  acknow- 
ledged his  supremacy  and  paid  for  what  was  obviously 
well  worth  paying  for,  he  graciously  accorded  his 
royal  protection.  They  were  immune  from  his  assaults 
and  those  of  all  others.  Those  who  were  foolish 
enough  to  combat  his  rights  had  also  to  pay  the  price. 
By  the  English  Wardens  Johnny  Armstrong  was, 
naturally,  regarded  as  a  most  vicious  source  of  danger 
to  themselves  and  to  their  countrymen,  and  so 
constant  were  the  tales  of  his  shedding  of  blood  and 
his  arrogant  successes,  that  his  sovereign  at  Edinburgh 
felt  that  steps  must  be  taken  to  assert  his  own  royal 
authority.  Lord  Dacre,  the  English  Warden,  was 
with  James  v.  when  he  and  his  eight  thousand  followers 
rode  into  Teviotdale  to  hunt  big  game,  and  take  by 
craft  a  king  of  the  reivers.  At  Caerlanrig,  where  were 
then  a  chapel  and  a  hamlet,  but  where  the  whaup 
now  wails  up  desolate  valleys,  the  camp  was  pitched. 
The  king  had  let  it  be  understood  that  all  broken 
men  who  should  come  into  his  camp  and  make  sub- 
mission to  him  should  have  indemnity,  and  to  Arm- 
strong himself  came  messengers  with  a  letter  written 
by  the  king's  own  hand,  telling  him  how  cordially 
welcomed  he  should  be  were  he  to  present  himself. 
Apparently  treachery  on  the  part  of  his  lawful  liege 
never  entered  into  the  mind  of  Johnny  Armstrong, 


THE  REIVERS  191 

ever  wary  and  prepared  for  double  dealing  where  an 
enemy  was  concerned.  Elliots  and  Armstrongs  alike 
felt  proud  of  the  honour  done  to  their  chief,  and  a 
gallant  company  of  fifty  Border  gentlemen,  with 
Johnny  at  their  head,  rode  to  the  royal  camp  by  the 
Frostly  Burn  to  assure  their  king  of  their  allegiance, 
and  to  beg  him  to  accept  the  hospitality  of  Gilnockie 
Tower.  The  '  jackes,  steil  capps,  speares,  gunis, 
lance  stalfes,  and  dagges,  swordes  and  daggers ' 
with  which  the  reivers  were  accustomed  to  arm 
themselves — for  even  the  herds  then  watched  their 
flocks  wearing  an  iron  jack,  and  with  pike  in  hand — 
were  laid  aside.  Unarmed  and  in  '  gorgeous  appar- 
rell '  did  the  King  of  the  Border  and  his  friends 
come  to  do  honour  to  their  sovereign.  How  many 
English  wardrobes  had  contributed  to  the  splendour 
of  the  raiders'  appearance  it  would  be  ungracious 
to  inquire,  for  their  mode  of  showing  confidence  was  a 
gracious  one  indeed.  Through  Langholm  rode  Johnny 
and  his  men — 

'  The  ladies  luikit  frae  their  loft  windows — 
God  bring  our  men  weel  home  again  ! ' 

But  their  future  was  in  the  lap  of  the  gods,  and 
never  home  came  they.  Through  the  steep  gorges 
where  bracken  and  heather  still  grow  they  passed, 
and  somewhere  near  where  the  farmhouse  of  Linhope 
now  stands  large  bodies  of  horsemen  dashed  down 
from  many  an  ambush  in  the  hills  and  closed  in  on 


192  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

them  on  every  side.  It  was  a  menacing  escort 
that  King  James  had  sent  to  his  courteously  invited 
guests.  The  magnificence  of  their  appearance  when 
they  reached  the  camp  only  did  more  to  inflame 
their  monarch's  ire. 

4  What  wants  that  knave  that  a  king  should  have  ?  ' 
he  wrathfully  demanded,  and  4  bade  take  that  tyrant 
out  of  his  sight.'  Unarmed  was  Johnny,  yet  he  pos- 
sessed the  weapon  that  the  reivers  used  last  of  all — 
the  Borderer's  eloquent  tongue.  He  saw  that  the 
king  meant  death  to  be  his  portion,  and  skilfully 
did  he  plead  his  cause.  But  his  proffered  bribes — 
even  the  offer  of  four-and-twenty  of  his  kinsmen  to 
serve  the  king  while  life  should  last — all  only  served 
to  confirm  James  v.  in  his  decision.  He  had  come 
to  do  Johnny  to  death,  and  nothing  was  going  to 
deprive  him  of  so  magnificent  a  quarry. 

'  "  Away,  away,  thou  traitor  strang  ! 

Out  o'  my  sight  soon  raay'st  thou  be ! 
I  grantit  never  a  traitor's  life, 

And  now  I  '11  not  begin  wi'  thee." 

w  Ye  lied,  ye  lied,  now  King,"  he  says, 

"  Altho'  a  King  and  Prince  ye  be  1 
For  I  've  luved  naething  in  my  life, 

I  weel  dare  say  it,  but  honesty — 

Save  a  fat  horse,  and  a  fair  woman, 

Twa  bonny  dogs  to  kill  a  deir ; 
But  England  suld  have  found  me  meal  and  mault, 

Gif  I  had  lived  this  hundred  yeir ! 


THE  REIVERS  193 

She  suld  have  found  me  meal  and  mault, 
And  beef  and  mutton  in  a  plentie ; 

But  never  a  Scots  wyfe  could  have  said 
That  e'er  I  skaith'd  her  a  puir  flee. 

To  seek  het  water  beneith  cauld  ice, 

Surely  it  is  a  great  folie — 
I  have  asked  grace  at  a  graceless  face, 

But  there  is  nane  for  my  men  and  me ! 

Had  I  my  horse,  and  harness  gude, 

And  riding  as  I  wont  to  be, 
It  suld  have  been  tauld  this  hundred  yeir, 

The  meeting  of  my  King  and  me !  " 

Grace  at  a  graceless  face  it  was  in  truth,  and  the 
ballad  tells  the  remainder  of  the  ugly  tale — 

'John  murdered  was  at  Carlinrigg, 

And  all  his  gallant  companie  : 
But  Scotland's  heart  was  ne'er  so  wae, 
To  see  sae  mony  brave  men  die — 

Because  they  saved  their  country  deir 
Frae  Englishmen  !     Nane  were  sa  bauld 

Whyle  Johnie  lived  on  the  Border  syde, 
Nane  of  them  durst  come  near  his  hauld.' 

Johnny  Armstrong  and  forty-seven  of  his  followers 
were  hanged  on  the  ash-trees  by  the  camp ;  one  of 
them,  '  Sandy  Scott,  a  prowd  thief!,'  was  burned 
alive,  because  it  was  proved  that  he  had  set  fire  to  a 
poor  widow's  house  and  that  some  of  her  children 
had  perished  in  the  flames.  And,  says  a  chronicler, 
1  the  English  people  were  exceeding  glad  when  they 
understood  that  Johnny  Armstrong  was  executed.' 


194  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Treacherously  and  shamefully  did  King  James 
thus  slay  one  of  his  most  loyal  friends,  and  the  lonely 
place  where  Johnny  Armstrong  perished  is  regarded 
as  the  martyrs'  graves  are  regarded  even  to  this  day. 

According  to  country  tradition  the  ash-trees  gave 
silent  protest  against  the  burdens  that  royal  treachery 
had  forced  them  to  bear,  by  withering  long  before 
their  time — 

'  The  trees  on  which  the  Armstrongs  dee'd 

Wi'  summer  leaves  were  gay, 
But  lang  afore  the  harvest  tide 
They  withered  a'  away.' 

There  was  many  a  martyr  besides  Johnny  Arm- 
strong to  his  convictions  of  what  was  fit  and  proper 
in  the  old  raiding  days.  Some  thirty-eight  years 
after  King  James's  raid,  another  raid  was  made  on 
the  Border,  this  time  by  the  Regent  Moray.  Scotts, 
Elliots,  and  Armstrongs  had  come  from  Deloraine, 
the  Dodhead,  Stobs,  Branxholm  Mains,  and  many 
another  farm  in  Liddesdale  and  Borthwick  Water, 
to  Hawick  Market,  and  were  there  peaceably  sell- 
ing their  cattle  and  sheep.  But  the  Regent  and 
his  men  were  upon  them  before  they  had  time  to 
realise  wherein  they  had  offended.  Fifty-three  of 
them  were  made  prisoners,  twenty-two  of  these, 
'  for  lacke  of  trees  and  halters,'  were  drowned  there 
and  then  in  the  Teviot.  Six  were  hanged  in  Edin- 
burgh and  the  remainder  imprisoned. 


THE  REIVERS  195 

In  1608  the  Earl  of  Dunbar,  his  gracious  Majesty's 
Commissioner  in  Scotland,  hanged  one  hundred  and 
forty  of  those  whom  he  designated  '  the  nimblest  and 
most  powerful '  of  the  reivers,  but  all  in  vain.  The 
survivors  went  on  with  the  dance. 

If  their  fellow-countrymen  had  cause  to  dread  the 
visits  of  the  reivers,  one  can  well  understand  the 
respect  in  which  century  after  century  they  were 
held  by  their  English  neighbours.  ^Eneas  Sylvius, 
afterwards  Pope  Pius  n.,  who  visited  Scotland  in 
the  reign  of  James  i.,  describes  his  stay  at  a  farmhouse 
near  Berwick  on  his  way  north,  and  relates  that  at 
two  A.M.  the  host  and  the  family  priest  hastily  rose 
from  the  supper  table.  They  were,  they  explained, 
going  to  a  distant  keep — probably  Norham — '  for 
fear  of  the  Scots,  who  for  purposes  of  plunder  were 
in  the  habit  of  crossing  the  river  at  ebb  tide  during 
the  night.'  The  harmony  of  the  evening  being  thus 
rudely  disturbed,  ^Eneas  Sylvius  begged  that  he 
might  be  allowed  to  accompany  his  host,  and  the 
ladies  of  the  party  were  also  urgent  in  their  entreaties 
not  to  be  left  behind  to  make  a  Scottish  holiday. 
But  the  owner  of  the  farm  and  his  priest  were  obdurate, 
and  rode  off  leaving  the  future  Pope  in  possession, 
and  with  him  for  company  about  one  hundred  women, 
two  men-servants,  and  his  own  guide.  They  sat 
round  the  fire,  the  women  cleansing  hemp,  and 
carrying  on  a  lively  conversation  through  the  guide, 


196  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

who  interpreted,  until  the  night  was  nearly  over, 
when  the  fierce  barking  of  dogs  and  the  cackling  of 
geese  scattered  the  company  in  wild  confusion. 
JSneas  Sylvius  was  hiding  in  a  stable  when  there  was 
brought  to  him  the  welcome  news  that  it  was  a  false 
alarm. 

Whatever  other  causes  of  complaint  against  the 
Scottish  freebooters  the  English  might  have,  they  had 
but  seldom  to  complain  of  the  maltreatment  of  their 
women,  as  one  is  glad  to  know  on  reading  of  the 
ungallant  desertion  of  the  women  in  the  report  of 
^Eneas  Sylvius.  Only  very  rarely,  in  the  records 
of  crime  on  the  Marches,  do  we  read  of  women  being 
taken  prisoners  for  the  sake  of  the  ransom,  or  for 
any  other  reason.  More  rarely  still  is  there  a  tale 
of  any  woman  being  slain  in  any  of  those  Border 
skirmishes.  Almost  the  only  instances  are  those  of 
the  aged  Lady  of  Buccleuch,  who,  in  October  1548, 
was  burned  to  death  in  her  tower  of  Catslack,  up 
Yarrow,  by  English  raiders,  and  of  the  woman  who 
was  slain  at  Newark  by  the  same  party,  commanded 
by  Lord  Grey,  the  English  Warden.  Of  course, 
as  is  ever  the  case  in  hostile  countries,  one  has  com- 
plaints from  Scots  and  from  English  of  the  glaring 
misconduct  of  the  other  side.  Presumably,  therefore, 
a  Scottish  Bill  presented  to  the  Lords  Commissioners 
of  England  in  1597  may  be  based  on  exaggerated 
statements.  According  to  the  complainers,  Scrope, 


THE  REIVERS  197 

the  English  Warden,  led  in  the  beginning  of  August 
1596  an  army  of  two  thousand  men,  '  for  the  most 
part  the  Queen's  waged  men,'  into  Liddesdale,  and 
took  prisoners.  The  men  they  took  were  coupled  two 
and  two  together  '  in  a  leashe  like  doggis,'  while  sixty 
to  eighty  women  and  children  were  stripped  l  of  their 
clothis  and  sarkis  '  and  left  naked,  '  exposit  to  the 
injurie  of  wind  and  weather,  whereby  nyne  or  tenne 
infants  perished  within  eight  daies  thereafter.'  This 
complaint  was  received  by  the  English  Commissioners 
with  the  greatest  incredulity.  They  suggested  that 
the  Liddesdale  unfortunates  had  magnified  a  hundred 
soldiers  into  a  thousand.  As  to  nine  or  ten  children 
perishing  in  '  the  greatest  hete  of  summer '  they 
would  have  none  of  it. 

But  however  impartially  one  may  strive  to  view 
the  case,  one  has  to  own  that  the  Borderers  on  the 
south  side  of  the  Tweed  were  little,  if  at  all,  behind  the 
Scottish  reivers  in  their  devotion  to  what  might  be 
regarded  as  a  hereditary  profession.  In  Cumberland 
it  was  customary  to  lay  a  sword  on  the  table  when 
the  provisions  were  nearing  an  end ;  and  '  Ride, 
Rowley,  ride  !  Hough 's  in  the  pot !  '  is  a  still  existing 
proverb,  keeping  green  the  memory  of  a  Lady  Graeme 
of  Netherby,  who  urged  on  her  son  Roland  to  replenish 
the  larder  with  some  Scottish  beef  or  black-faced 
mutton.  On  the  Scottish  side  delicate  hints  were 
also  given.  There  is  still  in  the  possession  of  Lord 


198  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Polwarth,  head  of  the  Scott  clan,  the  spurs  which, 
so  says  tradition,  were  dished,  clean  and  well  burnished, 
at  table  by  the  lady  of  '  Wat  o'  Harden,'  at  times 
when  she  felt  that  it  would  be  well  for  her  menu's 
sake  if  her  husband  took  a  moonlight  ride. 

By  the  ruling  powers  there  was  certainly  never 
much  done  to  increase  the  spirit  of  friendship  between 
English  and  Scottish  Borderers.  Amongst  other 
items  in  the  English  '  Remedy  for  Border  Decays,' 
issued  in  August  1597,  it  was  ordained  '  That  it  be 
March  treason  for  a  Borderer,  man  or  woman,  to 
intermarry  with  Scots  borderers.9 

In  the  eyes  of  the  petite  maztres  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries  who  had  not  come  into 
close  contact  with  the  men  of  the  Marches,  a  Borderer 
was  only  another  name  for  the  very  worst  type  of 
brigand.  The  Earl  of  Cork  and  Orrery  refers  to  them 
in  his  preface  to  Gary's  Memoirs,  as  '  those  Ostrogoths, 
the  Borderers,  a  set  of  wild  men,  who,  from  the  time 
when  the  Romans  left  our  island,  till  the  death  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  kept  the  southern  part  of  Scotland  and 
the  northern  part  of  England  in  a  perpetual  civil 
war,  and  seem  to  have  equalled  the  Caffres  in  the 
trade  of  stealing,  and  the  Hottentots  in  ignorance 
and  brutality.' 

John  Lesly,  Bishop  of  Ross,  wrote  of  his  country- 
men, the  Borderers,  as  though  he  spoke  of  those  of 
another  nation.  '  They  reckon  it  a  great  disgrace, 


THE  REIVERS  199 

and  the  part  of  a  mean  person,'  he  says,  '  for  any  one 
to  make  a  journey  on  foot,  whence  it  follows  that 
they  are  mostly  all  horsemen.  .  .  .  They  take  great 
pleasure  in  their  own  music,  and  in  their  rhythmical 
songs,  which  they  compose  upon  the  exploits  of  their 
ancestors,  or  in  their  own  ingenious  stratagems  in 
plundering,  or  their  artificial  defences  when  taken. 
Besides,  they  think  the  art  of  plundering  so  very 
lawful,  that  they  never  say  over  their  prayers  more 
fervently,  or  have  more  devout  recurrence  to  the  beads 
of  their  rosaries,  than  when  they  have  made  an  expedi- 
tion, as  they  frequently  do,  of  forty  or  fifty  miles 
for  the  sake  of  booty.  They  leave  their  frontiers  in 
the  night  time  in  troops,  going  through  impassable 
places,  and  through  many  a  bye-path.  All  the  day 
time  they  refresh  themselves  and  their  horses  in 
hiding  places  chosen  beforehand,  till  they  arrive  in 
the  dark  at  those  places  they  have  a  design  upon. 
Having  seized  their  booty,  they  return  home  in  the 
night,  in  like  manner,  through  blind  ways,  and 
fetching  many  a  compass.  The  more  skilled  a  leader 
is  to  pass  through  those  dreary  places,  crooked 
turnings,  and  deep  precipices,  in  the  thickest  mists 
and  darkness,  the  greater  is  his  honour  and  reputation 
for  ingenuity.  With  such  secrecy  can  they  proceed, 
that  they  very  rarely  have  their  booty  taken  from 
them,  unless  when,  by  the  help  of  bloodhounds, 
following  them  exactly  upon  the  track,  they  may 


200  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

chance  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  their  adversaries. 
But  if  they  are  taken,  their  eloquence  is  so  powerful, 
and  the  sweetness  of  their  language  so  winning,  that 
they  even  can  move  both  judges  and  accusers,  however 
severe  before,  if  not  to  mercy,  at  least  to  admiration 
and  compassion.'  '  They  know  no  measure  of  law,' 
says  Camden,  4  but  the  length  of  their  swords,'  yet 
even  their  English  enemies  had  to  own  that  although 
the  Scottish  Borderers  had  peculiar  notions  regarding 
the  rights  of  property,  certain  virtues  were  theirs. 
'  Their  word  was  as  true  as  steel,'  writes  Sir  Ralph 
Sadler,  '  and  though  they  would  plunder  without 
compunction,  yet  would  they  never  betray  any  man 
who  trusted  in  them  for  all  the  gold  in  France  or 
Scotland.'  '  I  do  assure  you,'  says  the  Earl  of  Surrey, 
writing  to  Wolsey  of  the  Border  chiefs  in  1523,  '  they 
are  the  boldest  men  and  the  hottest  that  ever  I  saw 
in  any  nation.' 

Not  even  the  interference  of  spiritual  authorities 
would  make  them  change  their  ways — notwithstand- 
ing the  fact  that  amongst  the  reiving  clans  Roman 
Catholicism  died  hard.  In  1524  and  1525  the  Scottish 
and  English  reivers  of  Tynedale  and  Redesdale 
were  excommunicated  by  the  Archbishop  of  Glasgow 
and  the  Bishop  of  Durham.  With  most  flesh-creeping 
and  all-embracing  curses  were  they  cursed :  '  I  CURSE 
thaim  gaungand,  and  I  CURSE  thaim  rydand  ;  I  CURSE 
thaim  standand,  and  I  CURSE  thaim  sittand ;  I  CURSE 


THE  REIVERS  201 

thaim  etand,  and  I  CURSE  thaim  drinkand ;  I  CURSE 
thaim  walkand,  and  I  CURSE  thaim  sleepand,'  and  so 
on — a  highly  elaborated  and  most  skilfully  particu- 
larised service  of  commination.  '  And,  finally,  I 
CONDEMN  thaim  perpetualie  to  the  deip  pit  of  hell, 
to  remain  with  Lucifeir  and  all  his  fallowis,  and  thair 
bodies  to  the  gallowis  of  the  Burrow  Mure,  first  to  be 
hangit,  syne  revin  and  ruggit  with  doggis,  swyne  and 
utheris  wyld  beists,  abhominable  to  all  the  war  Id.' 
But  the  reivers  as  little  valued  these  ecclesiastical 
threats  to  their  souls  as  the  threats  to  their  bodies. 
A  Scottish  friar  was  prevailed  upon  to  administer 
the  Communion  to  them,  '  of  his  facion,'  and  they 
snapped  their  irreverent  fingers  in  the  faces  of  the 
Archbishop  and  the  predecessor  of  '  little  Tobie 
of  Durham.' 

With  the  idea  of  keeping  law  and  order  in  the 
most  troublesome  portions  of  the  two  kingdoms, 
the  country  on  either  side  of  the  Cheviots  had  been 
divided  into  three  Marches,  ruled  over  by  Wardens 
appointed  by  their  several  governments.  On  the 
Eastern  March  of  Scotland  the  Homes  held  rule,  and, 
probably  owing  to  the  proximity  of  the  garrison  at 
Berwick,  had  a  slightly  less  arduous  task  than  the 
Wardens  of  the  other  Marches.  The  Western  March 
was  in  the  unhappy  position  of  being  a  prey  for  which 
the  rival  houses  of  Maxwell  and  of  Johnston  were  at 
constant  warfare,  and  which  was  given  to  one  family, 


202  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

then  to  another,  as  suited  the  passing  caprice  of  king 
or  councillors.  The  Middle  March  was  probably 
the  choicest  hunting-ground  for  the  true-bred  reiver, 
for  from  thence  he  had  a  choice  of  three  Marches, 
all  most  equally  possible  of  access.  The  Elliots  and 
Armstrongs  of  Liddesdale  were  said  to  be  '  always 
riding,'  and  no  whit  behind  them  were  the  men  of 
Teviotdale — Rutherfurds,  Burnes,  Douglases,  Turn- 
bulls,  Croziers,  and  many  others.  As  for  the  clan 
Scott,  they  had  catholic  tastes  in  their  English  forays. 
East,  west,  north  and  south  was  all  the  same  to  them, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  as  Warden  of  Liddesdale, 
an  extra  Wardenship  presumably  created  by  the 
exigencies  of  the  case,  a  Scott  of  Buccleuch  most 
frequently  held  office.  The  Middle  March  was  ruled 
by  the  Kers — now  by  a  Ker  of  Cessford,  and  again 
by  a  Ker  of  Fernihirst,  head  of  the  rival  house. 
Perhaps  the  raiders'  palmiest  days  were  those  when 
young  Ker  of  Cessford  ruled  for  his  father,  while  his 
brother-in-law,  Buccleuch — after  the  fall  of  Bothwell 
— was  keeper  of  Liddesdale.  Those  were  the  days 
of  Wat  o'  Harden,  of  Kinmont  Willie,  of  Geordie 
Bourne  of  infamous  repute,  of  a  gallant  host  of  free- 
booters whose  memory  still  is  green. 

Scott  of  Harden  in  Liddesdale  and  of  Kirkhope 
and  Oakwood  in  the  Ettrick  Valley,  still  known 
and  loved  as  '  Auld  Wat,'  was  a  descendant  from 
the  house  of  Sinton,  and  married  Mary  Scott  of 


THE  REIVERS  203 

Dryhope,  known  as  the  '  Flower  of  Yarrow ' — a 
beautiful  woman,  and  one  who  had,  according  to  Sir 
Walter,  '  a  curious  hand  at  pickling  the  beef  he  stole.5 
A  family  of  six  sons  and  six  daughters  was  theirs, 
and,  in  addition,  tradition  tells  us  that  Lady  Harden 
brought  up  as  her  adopted  son  a  lad  who,  as  a  handsome 
little  boy,  was  brought  back  by  the  Scotts  from  a 
raid  into  Cumberland.  One  fancies  he  may  have  had 
something  to  say  in  the  conception  of  Roland  Graeme 
in  the  brain  of  Auld  Wat's  great  descendant,  but  he 
was  not  a  fighting  man  like  Roland,  nor  like  Auld  Wat 
and  his  stalwart  sons,  but  a  minstrel.  He,  it  is  said, 
was  the  *  Minstrel  Burne,'  who  sang  of '  Leader  Haughs 
and  Yarrow,'  and  to  him,  also,  is  attributed  both 
words  and  music  of  many  of  the  Border  ballads.  A 
strange  product  of  the  English  side  must  he  have 
seemed  to  Auld  Wat,  who  habitually  wrote  his  name 
with  the  sword,  and  of  the  pen  knew  nothing  whatever. 
Wat's  sons  were  men  after  his  own  heart,  and  it  must 
have  been  a  hard  blow  to  him  when  Walter,  his 
second  son,  was  slain  by  the  Scotts  of  Gilmanscleugh 
in  a  fray  that  began  at  a  hunting  match.  To  arms 
flew  the  dead  man's  five  brothers.  But  Auld  Wat 
was  a  prudent  father ;  promptly  he  deprived  them 
of  their  weapons,  locked  them  up  in  one  of  the  dungeons 
of  his  tower,  hurried  off  to  Edinburgh,  and  there 
stated  his  case.  The  lands  of  Gilmanscleugh  were  at 
once  declared  to  be  forfeit  and  given  as  compensation 


204  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

to  the  bereaved  parent.  Back  to  Harden  with  the 
charter  he  galloped,  and  released  his  prisoners.  '  To 
horse,  lads  !  '  he  cried,  '  and  let  us  take  possession  ! 
The  lands  o'  Gilmanscleugh  are  well  worth  a  dead 
son.' 

In  spite  of  the  occasional  appearance  of  a  dish 
of  spurs,  not  often  did  Wat  o'  Harden's  livestock 
come  so  low  as  on  the  shameful  occasion  when 
he  heard  a  herd  refer  to  '  Wat  o'  Harden's  coo.' 
4  Harden's  coo  !  '  said  the  affronted  Wat.  '  Is  't  come 
to  that  ?  By  my  faith,  they  '11  sune  say  Harden's 
kye  ! ' 

Boot  and  saddle  was  at  once  the  word  for 
Wat  and  his  men.  The  English  side  had  a  visit 
from  them  that  night,  and  '  a  bow  of  kye  and  a  bas- 
sened  bull '  were  driven  home  to  Harden  early  next 
morning. 

'  I  swear  by  the  light  of  the  Michaelmas  moon 

And  the  might  of  Mary  high, 
And  by  the  edge  of  my  braidsword  brown, 
They  shall  soon  say  Harden's  kye. 

The  Michaelmas  moon  had  entered  then, 

And  ere  she  wan  the  full, 
Ye  might  see  by  her  light  in  Harden  glen 

A  bow  o'  kye  and  a  bassened  bull.' 

It  was,  they  say,  on  his  homeward  ride  that 
he  passed  an  extra  big  haystack  and  eyed  it 
wistfully.  c  By  my  saul,'  he  said,  '  had  ye  but  fower 


THE  REIVERS  205 

feet,  ye  shouldna  stand  lang  there ! '  Not  much 
that  was  worth  taking  did  Wat  leave  behind  him 
when  he  went  a-reiving.  In  June  1596  there  is  a 
record  of  a  moonlight  ride  to  Cumberland,  in  company 
with  '  Will  Elliot  of  Larreston,'  '  the  young  laird  of 
Whithaugh,'  and  sixty  men,  from  whence  he  brought 
back  '  300  kye  and  oxen,  20  horses  and  mares,  spoil 
of  2  houses,  golde  money  and  insight,  worth  100£  stg.' 
In  August  of  the  same  year  he  and  young  Whithaugh 
— evidently  a  purposeful  youth — with  *  John  and  Gib 
Ellotts,  sons  to  Martine,'  and  four  hundred  men,  paid 
a  visit  by  day  to  some  Armstrongs  and  others,  Queen 
Elizabeth's  tenants  in  Gilsland,  c  arrayed  in  the  most 
warlike  manner.'  Behind  them,  when  they  returned 
homewards,  they  left  twenty  burning  houses  and 
many  wounded  men,  and,  as  a  memento  of  their 
visit,  they  took  with  them  gold  money  and  4  apperrell, 
etc.,'  worth  £400,  three  hundred  kye  and  oxen,  twenty 
horses,  and  various  other  little  unconsidered  trifles 
that  might  prove  useful  to  their  wives.  To  Cecil,  in 
July  1597,  Lord  Eure,  Warden  of  the  Middle  March, 
wrote  in  bitterness  of  spirit.  Wat  o'  Harden,  with 
other  Teviotdale  lairds,  and  a  gallant  company  of 
moss-troopers,  had  c  brake  a  day  forray  a  myle 
beneathe  Bellinghame,  spoiled  the  townesmen  in 
Bellinghame,  brake  the  crosse,'  and  gone  '  up  the 
water  '  driving  before  them  '  thre  or  fower  hundredth 
beastes  at  the  leaste,'  and  leaving  behind  them 


206  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

three  dead  Englishmen  and  one  '  wounded  almoste  to 
deathe.'  Between  nine  and  ten  in  the  morning  news 
of  the  raid  reached  Eure  at  Hexham,  the  beacons  were 
fired,  and  an  appeal  for  men  to  cut  off  the  raiders  was 
speedily  issued.  But  no  more  than  four  hundred  men, 
all  told,  came  in  response  to  the  summons,  and  although 
the  Warden  with  this  little  army  followed  the  Scots 
with  their  lowing  plunder  to  within  three  or  four 
miles  of  Scotland,  they  durst  make  no  attack.  '  With 
shame  and  grief e  I  speake  it,'  says  Eure,  '  the  Scottes 
went  away  unf ought  withall.'  A  significant  remark 
in  his  letter  is  that  '  except  Mr.  Fenwicke  there  was 
not  one  gentleman  of  the  Marche  to  accompanie,  or 
mett  me  at  all.'  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  gentlemen 
of  the  March  on  the  English  side  knew  better  than  to 
meddle  with  certain  of  the  reiving  Scots  when  they 
met  them  out  riding  for  profit  as  well  as  for  pleasure. 
In  plain  words,  the  Scots  extorted  blackmail  from 
certain  proprietors,  whose  livestock  and  houses  suffered 
no  scathe  so  long  as  the  owner  paid  the  lawful  dues  to 
his  patrons,  and  remained  deaf  to  all  clamour  and 
steadily  looked  in  the  other  direction  while  the 
property  of  his  neighbours  was  harried.  In  the 
minds  of  the  raiders  themselves,  there  could  be  no 
question  as  to  the  righteousness  of  this  bargain, 
If  an  Englishman  desired  immunity  from  hostilities, 
he  must  pay  for  it.  It  must  be  a  strictly  commercial 
transaction — are  we  not  taxed  in  order  to  support  a 


THE  REIVERS  207 

possibly  no  more  efficient  police  force  even  to  this 
day  ? — and  Auld  Wat  would  have  been  grievously 
wronging  his  fair  wife  and  numerous  family  had  he 
been  unbusinesslike  in  this  respect.  Even  Scott  of 
Buccleuch  was,  apparently,  not  above  claiming  black- 
mail. A  letter  dated  Jan.  20,  1549,  from  young 
Buccleuch  to  a  certain  Alexander  Macdonald  of  Kelso, 
states  that  last  time  he  was  in  Kelso  he  sent  William 
Scott  of  Harden  and  another  to  Macdonald's  house 
(no  doubt  with  Ferraras  handy),  but  found  him  from 
home.  Further,  he  desires  him  to  send  him  his  grey 
horse,  or  *  gif  the  grey  be  nocht  in  place,  send  me  the 
broun.  And  gif  ye  do  nocht  it  sal  ken  me  gud  ever 
to  do  yow  ony  favoris  in  tyme  cuming.  And  I  sail 
do  yow  ane  grett  skaitht  nor  twis  the  worth  of 
the  horse.  And  tak  this  for  ane  warning  and 
nocht  ellis,  but  God  keip  yow.'  According  to  tradi- 
tion, Harden  was  never  slothful  in  business.  When 
one  of  his  daughters,  known  as  '  Maggie  Fendy,' 
married  Sir  Gilbert  Eliott  of  Stobs  (c  Gibbie  o'  the 
Gowden  Garters  '),  part  of  the  marriage  settlement — 
alas  that  the  accuracy  of  the  latter  part  of  the  tale 
has  not  been  proved ! — was  that  Gibbie  and  his  bride 
should  remain  as  the  guests  of  Harden,  at  his  Tower 
of  Dryhope,  for  a  year  and  a  day,  and  that,  in  return 
for  his  hospitality,  Gibbie  should  give  his  father-in-law 
'  the  plunder  of  the  first  harvest  moon.' 

The  tale  of  the  marriage  of  his  eldest  son,  William, 


208  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

with  a  daughter  of  Murray  of  Elibank,  has  been  sung 
by  two  such  different  people  as  the  Ettrick  Shepherd 
and  Robert  Browning.  Young  Scott  was  captured  red- 
handed  *  lifting  '  Elibank's  cattle,  and  was  condemned 
to  be  hanged  on  the  gallows  tree  which  no  family 
of  any  standing  was  without.  But  Lady  Elibank  had 
a  marriageable  daughter,  and  Sir  William  was  a 
proper  youth,  apparently  as  diligent  in  business  as 
his  famous  father.  '  Muckle-mouthed  Meg '  was  the 
descriptive  name  of  the  maiden  ('  Agnes J  is,  unfortu- 
nately, her  title  in  the  provokingly  unaccommodating 
legal  documents  that  still  exist),  and  Lady  Elibank 
persuaded  her  husband  to  give  his  captive  choice 
between  hanging  and  matrimony.  To  young  Harden 
the  latter  seemed  the  lesser  evil,  so  he  and  Muckle- 
mouthed  Meg  were  wed,  and  were  the  parents  of  five 
brave  sons — their  third  son,  '  Watty  Wudspurs,' 
being  the  ancestor  of  a  yet  greater  Walter  Scott. 
The  tale  is  not  one  that  is  very  creditable  to  either 
of  the  contracting  parties  were  we  to  accept  the  legend 
intact,  and  one  is  grateful  to  Robert  Browning  for 
his  more  romantic  version.  The  unbending  and 
defiant  young  reiver — the  charming  girl  who  passes 
as  the  gaoler's  daughter,  brings  the  reiver  his  porridge, 
and  cheers  his  dreary  solitude — the  march  out  to 
death,  with  '  sky  blue '  and  4  turf  grassy,'  and  love 
for  the  winsome  gaoleress  in  his  heart — it  is  all  very 
delightful.  And  most  delightful  of  all  is  his  scornful 


THE  REIVERS  209 

rejection  of  Meg,  under  the  very  shadow  of  the  gallows, 
and  the  response  of  Meg  herself — 

' "  Not  Muckle-mouthed  Meg  ?     Wow,  the  obstinate  man  ! 

Perhaps  he  would  rather  wed  me  ! " 
"  Ay,  would  he — with  just  for  a  dowry  your  can !  " 
"  I  'm  Muckle-mouthed  Meg,"  chirruped  she.' 

Opposite  Yarrow  Kirk  an  old  track  runs  westward 
and  is  called  still  '  Harden's  Drive,'  and  many  a 
head  of  English  cattle  must  have  passed  along  there 
in  the  good  old  days. 

The  ballad  of  *  Jamie  Telfer  o'  the  fair  Dodhead ' 
has  immortalised  one  of  Auld  Wat's  famous  raids. 
There  are  wise  men  who  tell  us  that  the  ballad  is 
*  unhistorical,  legendary,  and  late.'  There  is  no 
mention  of  the  raid  in  those  most  accurate  of  bills, 
the  account  of  debit  and  credit  kept  by  the  English 
and  Scottish  wardens,  nor  can  the  name  of  Jamie 
Telfer  be  found  in  any  record.  It  would  seem  to 
be  a  well-disguised  rendering  of  a  foray  made  by 
Musgrave,  Captain  of  Bewcastle,  long  before  the  days 
of  Auld  Wat  and  Gibbie  o'  the  Gowden  Garters.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  the  erudite  will  find  it  almost  as  easy 
to  persuade  Borderers  to  doubt  the  authenticity  of 
the  Psalms  of  David  as  to  give  up  their  belief  in  the 
historical  accuracy  of  their  ballad.  The  Captain  of 
Bewcastle  and  his  men  had  ridden  over  the  March, 
and  in  Teviotdale  found  the  booty  they  sought  in 
the  cattle  of  '  Jamie  Telfer  o'  the  fair  Dodhead.'  As 


210  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

they  rode  homeward  in  triumph  the  heart-broken 
Jamie  sought  for  help.  No  horse  was  left  to 
him. 

'  The  sun  wasna  up,  but  the  moon  was  down, 

It  was  the  gryming  of  a  new-fa'en  snaw, 
Jamie  Telfer  has  run  ten  miles  a-foot, 

Between  the  Dodhead  and  the  Stobs  Ha'.' 

But  Gibbie  o5   the  Gowden  Garters  would    have 
none  of  him. 

'  Gae  seek  your  succour  at  Branksome  Ha', 

For  succour  ye  'se  get  nane  frae  me  ! 
Gae  seek  your  succour  where  ye  paid  blackmail, 
For,  man,  ye  ne'er  paid  money  to  me.' 

From  Jock  Grieve  o'  the  Coultart  Cleugh  his  treat- 
ment was  more  kindly,  and  on  '  a  bonny  black ' 
Jamie  Telfer  rode  on  to  '  tak  the  fraye.'  There  was 
no  hesitation  amongst  any  of  the  Scott  clan,  from 
Buccleuch  downwards,  when  the  news  was  proclaimed, 
and  Wat  o'  Harden  and  his  sons  were  amongst  the 
avengers  who  rode  hot- trod  for  the  south. 

'  The  Scotts  they  rade,  the  Scotts  they  ran, 

Sae  starkly  and  sae  steadily ! 
And  aye  the  ower-word  o'  the  thrang 
Was — "  Rise  for  Branksome  readilie ! " 

Through  the  hills  and  across  the  moors  of  Liddesdale 
they  rode,  and  near  a  burn  which  joins  the  Teviot 
close  to  Mosspaul  the  English  raiders  were  overtaken, 
and  the  fray  began. 


THE  REIVERS  211 

1  Then  till 't  they  gaed,  wi'  heart  and  hand, 

The  blows  fell  thick  as  bickering  hail ; 
And  mony  a  horse  ran  masterless, 
And  mony  a  manly  cheek  was  pale.' 

Willie  Scott,  brave  son  of  the  bold  Buccleuch,  was 
one  of  those  who  fell. 

'  And  Harden  grat  for  very  rage, 

When  Willie  on  the  grund  lay  slain. 

But  he 's  taen  aff  his  gude  steel  cap, 
And  thrice  he 's  waved  it  in  the  air — 

The  Dinlay  snaw  was  ne'er  mair  white 
Nor  the  lyart  locks  of  Harden's  hair. 

"  Revenge  !  Revenge  !  "  auld  Wat  'gan  cry ; 

"  Fye,  lads,  set  on  them  cruellie ! 
We  '11  ne'er  see  Teviotside  again, 

Or  Willie's  death  revenged  sail  be."  ' 

And  revenged  most  handsomely  it  was,  both  in  blood 
and  in  plunder,  and  Jamie  Telfer  was  a  wealthier  man 
because  of  the  foray  of  the  Captain  of  Bewcastle. 
Was  Wat's  adopted  son  amongst  the  raiders  that 
wintry  night  ?  And  is  it  to  him  that  we  owe  the 
pictures  of  the  '  gryming  of  a  new-fa'en  snaw,'  and  of 
Auld  Wat,  a  Border  lion  at  bay,  waving  his  steel  cap 
over  locks  as  white  as  the  snow  on  one  of  the  lonely 
hills  of  Liddesdale  ? 

According  to  the  Ettrick  Shepherd,  the  bridge  at 
Ettrick  Bridgend  owes  its  existence  to  Auld  Wat, 
and  the  stone  which  was  removed  from  the  old  bridge 
and  built  into  the  present  one  bears  the  crescent  moon 
and  the  Harden  motto.  Wat  had  brought  back  a 


212  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

rich  booty  from  Northumberland,  so  the  story  goes, 
but  richest  of  all  the  plunder  was  a  hostage,  the  little 
son  of  Neville  of  Ravensworth.  Probably  the  night 
was  dark  and  the  Ettrick  running  high,  but  as  the 
reivers  forded  the  river  on  their  return,  the  child 
slipped  into  the  water  and  was  swiftly  carried  away. 
In  stone  and  in  lime  Wat's  penance  was  paid.  *  One 
life  lost  shall  save  a  hundred,5  he  said,  when  he  had 
built  the  bridge  over  the  ford. 

The  office  of  Warden  in  Wat  oj  Harden's  day  was 
assuredly  no  sinecure,  as  the  letters  that  went  from 
the  English  Wardens  up  to  London  still  can  prove. 
4  They  '  (the  Scots  reivers)  '  are  alleredy  very  bisy,' 
wrote  Sir  Robert  Carey,  afterwards  Earl  of  Monmouth, 
in  a  letter  asking  for  help.  '  The  longer  the  nightes 
growe,  the  worse  will  they  be.'  Much  had  this  poor 
man  to  suffer  from  the  frequent  wilful  blindness  of 
the  Scottish  Wardens,  Buccleuch  and  Cessford  and 
from  their  even  more  frequent  active  instigation  to 
those  for  whose  good  conduct  they  were  supposed 
to  be  responsible  to  raid  the  English  Border.  The 
c  twoo  fyrebrandes  of  the  Border '  those  Wardens 
were  called,  in  1597,  by  Bowes,  the  English  ambassador, 
and  while  they  lived  and  ruled  neither  their  own 
sovereign,  nor  she  who  reigned  in  England,  was 
permitted  a  dull  moment. 

Sir  Robert  Ker,  younger  of  Cessford — created, 
in  1616,  first  Earl  of  Roxburghe — did  duty  for  his 


BOWDEN    KIRK 


•  blv  the 


for  he         *  Th  r  th 

gr«  ad 


^ 


THE  REIVERS  213 

father,  sometimes  from  his  house,  '  The  Friars,'  at 
Kelso,  sometimes  from  the  old  keep  of  Holydene. 
The  precepts  of  a  pious  ancestress,  graven  in  stone 
in  1530,  still  exist  at  the  latter  place.  '  Feir  God. 
Fie  from  sin.  Mdk  for  the  Lyfe  Everlesting  to  the  End,' 
said  Dame  Esbel  Ker.  But  Sir  Robert  Ker,  popularly 
known  as  '  Habby,'  feared  neither  God  nor  man.  To 
advance  himself  in  the  world,  to  avenge  himself  on 
his  enemies — and  they  were  many — to  keep,  when 
possible,  on  the  winning  side,  such  were  the  pre- 
cepts of  one  who  was,  with  truth,  l  a  bloody e  man.' 
4  Habby's  hanging  tree  '  still  exists,  and  his  unhallowed 
ghost  is  said  still  to  ride.  The  power  of  his  name  is 
known  even  now  to  the  country-folk  who,  at  night, 
hear  the  owls  hoot  from  the  ivy  of  the  tower  where  once 
he  lived,  or  who  pass  by  the  old  grey  kirk  of  Bowden, 
where  his  body  lies,  when  the  moon  is  high  and  the 
spirits  of  dead  reivers  may  be  expected  to  be  abroad. 
There  was  a  gallant  insolence,  a  magnificent  arrogance, 
about  Sir  Robert  Ker,  at  the  time  when  it  suited  his 
book  to  disturb  the  peace  of  English  subjects  as  much 
as  lay  in  his  power,  which  goes  some  way  to  atone 
for  his  many  evil  deeds.  He  would  personally 
superintend  a  foray,  slay,  with  his  own  hand,  '  most 
bloody  e,'  a  brace  or  two  of  Englishmen,  and  triumph- 
antly sound  his  '  trompet '  to  make  all  men  aware 
that  Habby  himself  was  present,  while  his  followers 
went  on  with  the  killing.  The  welfare  of  friends  or 


214  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

retainers  was  little  to  him,  but  woe  be  to  the  man 
who,  in  injuring  one  of  Cessford's  retainers,  touched 
the  pride  of  the  chief.  One  of  his  herds  had  '  one 
shepe  hogg '  stolen  from  him  by  an  Englishman. 
Over  the  Border,  to  Wooler,  rode  Sir  Robert  and 
sixty  horsemen,  slew  two  men  there  for  the  crime  that 
they  were  English,  and  rode  back  to  the  keep  under 
the  shadow  of  the  Eildons,  '  sounding  his  trompett 
in  the  towne  gate  while  they  were  a  killing,  and  all 
the  way  home.'  '  So  highlie,'  writes  Sir  John  Carey, 
4  was  Sesforde's  honor  toiched  therein.' 

Buccleuch,  Warden  of  Liddesdale,  was  a  man  of  a 
different  stamp  from  his  brother-in-law,  Robert  Ker. 
Never  could  it  be  said  that  Scott  of  Buccleuch  let 
self-interest  come  between  him  and  loyalty  either  to 
friend  or  to  foe.  A  firebrand  he  might  be,  a  most 
accomplished  raider  he  undoubtedly  was,  but 
Buccleuch  was  not  a  *  bloody  man.'  He  slew  only 
when  slaying  was  necessary.  As  a  leader  he  was  one 
of  the  great  men  of  his  century,  and  even  in  days 
that  were  rich  in  brave  men  and  in  gallant  deeds, 
Buccleuch  towered  as  a  giant  above  his  fellows.  The 
magnificent  exploit  of  the  release  of  Kinmont  Willie, 
when  Buccleuch  was  a  man  of  thirty,  is  a  story  with 
regard  to  which  ballad  and  State  papers  show  but  few 
discrepancies. 

Kinmont  Willie  was  a  worthy  descendant  of 
Johnny  Armstrong,  a  raider  whose  frequent  successes 


THE  REIVERS  215 

made  him  an  object  of  much  dislike  to  the  English 
Wardens.  In  March  1596  there  was  a  day's  truce 
for  the  meeting  of  the  Wardens,  which  was  held 
at  Dayholm,  near  Kershopefoot.  As  a  retainer  of 
Buccleuch,  his  Warden  and  feudal  lord,  Kinmont 
Willie  was  present,  and  as  he  rode  homewards  with 
a  small  band  of  friends,  a  body  of  two  hundred 
English  horsemen,  commanded  by  Salkeld,  deputy 
of  Lord  Scrope,  Warden  of  the  East  March,  surprised 
him,  and,  after  a  chase  of  two  or  three  miles,  took 
him  prisoner.  Like  a  common  malefactor,  arms 
tied  behind  him,  legs  bound  under  his  horse's  belly, 
his  captors  brought  him  to  Carlisle  town.  It  was  a 
shameless  violation  of  the  Border  law,  which  ordained 
that  on  those  days  of  truce  all  Scots  and  Englishmen 
who  were  present  at  the  Wardens'  meeting  should  be 
free  of  scathe  from  sunrise  on  the  one  day  until  sunset 
on  the  next.  Buccleuch,  when  news  reached  him  of 
the  treacherous  taking  of  his  friend,  at  once  raised 
an  angry  protest.  The  English  Warden  received 
this  with  an  evasive  and  obviously  trumped  up 
countercharge  of  Kinmont  Will  having  first  broken 
truce.  Moreover,  he  said,  he  was  a  notorious  enemy 
to  law  and  order,  and  must  bear  the  penalty.  Too 
much  this  was  for  the  bold  Buccleuch. 

'  He  has  ta'en  the  table  wi'  his  hand, 

He  garr'd  the  red  wine  spring  on  hie — 
"  Now  Christ's  curse  on  my  head,"  he  said, 
"  But  avenged  of  Lord  Scrope  I  '11  be  ! 


216  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

O  is  my  basnet  a  widow's  curch  ? 

Or  my  lance  a  wand  o'  the  willow-tree  ? 
Or  my  arm  a  ladye's  lilye  hand, 

That  an  English  lord  should  lightly  me  ? " 

An  appeal  to  King  James  resulted  in  an  application 
to  the  English  government,  but  while  the  English 
authorities  quibbled,  paltered,  and  delayed,  the  days 
of  Kinmont  Willie  were  being  numbered  by  his  captors, 
who  were  not  likely  to  forgo  the  triumph  of  putting 
an  end  to  the  daring  deeds  of  so  bold  a  Scot  when 
they  had  him  safely  chained  in  Carlisle  Castle,  with 
Haribee  Hill  so  handily  near  for  a  hanging.  Buccleuch 
saw  that  he  had  no  time  to  lose.  He  must  strike  at 
once  and  strike  fiercely. 

Shrewd  and  chill  blew  the  winds  down  the 
Liddesdale  glens,  the  burns  and  rivers  were  in 
spate,  and  sleet  drifted  down  in  the  teeth  of  the 
gale  on  the  dark  and  stormy  night,  early  in  April 
1596,  when  Buccleuch,  with  a  band  of  some  forty  of 
his  friends  and  kinsmen  upon  whom  he  most  relied, 
rode  through  the  woods  from  his  house  of  Wood- 
houselee  to  meet  some  hundred  and  fifty,  or  so, 
of  other  chosen  men.  Scotts,  Elliots,  Armstrongs,  and 
Graemes  were  there,  and  although  Buccleuch  had  re- 
quested that  only  younger  sons  were  to  risk  their  lives 
in  the  forlorn  hope  that  night,  Auld  Wat  o'  Harden 
and  many  another  landowner  rode  with  their  chief. 
4  Valiant  men,  they  would  not  bide,'  says  Scott  of 


THE  REIVERS  217 

Satchells.  Kinmont  Willie's  tower  of  Morton,  on 
the  Water  of  Sark,  some  ten  miles  north  of  Carlisle, 
was  their  rallying-point.  Every  detail  had  been  care- 
fully arranged  by  Buccleuch  at  a  horse-race  that  was 
held  at  Langholm  a  few  days  before.  The  reivers, 
one  and  all,  were  well  armed,  '  with  spur  on  heel,  and 
splent  on  spauld,'  l  and  carried  with  them  iron  crow- 
bars, picks,  axes,  and  scaling  ladders.  The  Esk  and 
Eden  were  in  furious  flood,  but  no  flood  could  stay 
the  reivers'  horses  that  night. 

t  K  \ye  gO  |-0  catch  a  rank  reiver 

Has  broken  faith  wi'  the  bauld  Buccleuch." 

"  Where  are  ye  gaun,  ye  mason  lads, 

Wi'  a'  your  ladders,  lang  and  hie  ?  " 
(t  We  gang  to  herry  a  corbie's  nest, 

That  wons  not  far  frae  Woodhouselee." ' 

To  harry  the  corbie's  nest  was  no  light  matter. 
Carlisle  Castle  rears  itself  aloft  in  the  centre  of  the 
town,  and  it  was  strongly  garrisoned.  But  Nature 
played  into  the  hands  of  the  men  who  were  still  her 
unspoiled,  if  uncultured,  children.  Wind  and  sleet 
were  now  reinforced  by  a  thunderstorm. 

e  And  when  we  left  the  Staneshaw-bank, 

The  wind  began  full  loud  to  blaw, 
But  'twas  wind  and  weet,  and  fire  and  sleet, 
When  we  came  beneath  the  castle  wa'.' 

The  watch  was  either  asleep  at  their  posts  or  shelter- 

1  Armour  on  shoulder. 


218  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

ing  from  the  storm  when  the  besiegers  reached  the 
castle.  It  was  dismaying  to  find  their  scaling  ladders 
too  short,  but  a  postern  door  was  speedily  undermined. 
The  tumult  of  the  storm  drowned  the  sounds  of  the 
assault,  and  now  there  was  no  further  need  for  con- 
cealment, for  the  lower  court  of  the  castle  was  theirs. 
The  guard  was  overpowered,  and  two  of  them  left 
dead,  and  Buccleuch,  the  fifth  man  in,  gave  the 
command  to  proclaim  aloud  their  triumph. 

( "  Now  sound  out  trumpets  ! "  quoth  Buccleuch  ; 
"  Let 's  waken  Lord  Scroope  right  merrilie ! " 
Then  loud  the  Warden's  trumpet  blew — 
"  0  rvha  daur  meddle  w?  me?" 

To  the  castle  gaol,  while  Buccleuch  himself  kept 
guard  at  the  postern,  twenty-four  stout  moss-troopers 
now  rushed,  forced  the  door  of  Kinmont's  prison, 
and  carried  him  out  on  the  back  of  '  the  starkest  man 
in  Teviotdale,'  fetters  and  all. 

4  Stand  to  it ! '  cried  Buccleuch — so  says  the  traitor 
who  afterwards  acted  as  informer  to  the  English 
Warden — '  I  have  vowed  to  God  and  my  Prince  that 
I  will  fetch  Kinmont  out  of  England  dead  or  quick ! ' 

Shouts  of  victory,  the  clash  of  picks  on  shattered 
doors  and  ruined  mason-work,  and  that  insolent  and 
oft-repeated  blast  from  the  trumpet  of  him  whom 
Scrope  described  to  the  Privy  Council  as  '  the 
capten  of  this  proud  attempt,'  were  not  reassuring 
sounds  to  the  Warden  of  the  English  Marches, 


THE  REIVERS  219 

his  deputy,  and  his  garrison.  They  lay  low  and 
said  nothing,  or,  in  the  words  of  the  historian, 
they  '  did  keip  thamselffis  close.'  But  no  sooner 
had  the  rescue  party  reached  the  Staneshawbank 
to  ford  the  Eden,  than  there  was  an  alarm  in 
good  earnest.  Bells  clanged,  the  beacon  on  the  great 
tower  did  its  best,  in  spite  of  storm  and  sleet  and 
tempest,  to  warn  all  honest  English  folk  with  its  red- 
tongued  flames  that  a  huge  army  of  Scots  was  on  the 
war-path,  and  that  the  gallows  on  Haribee  Hill  had 
been  insulted  by  the  abduction  of  its  lawful  prey. 

*  We  scarce  had  won  the  Staneshaw-bank, 

When  a'  the  Carlisle  bells  were  rung, 
And  a  thousand  men  on  horse  and  foot, 
Cam  wi'  the  keen  Lord  Scroope  along. 

Buccleuch  has  turn'd  to  Eden  Water, 
Even  where  it  flow'd  frae  bank  to  brim, 

And  he  has  plunged  in  wi'  a'  his  band, 

And  safely  swam  them  through  the  stream. 

He  turned  him  on  the  other  side, 

And  at  Lord  Scroope  his  glove  flung  he — 

"  If  ye  like  na'  my  visit  in  merry  England, 
In  fair  Scotland  come  visit  me  !  " 

All  sore  astonished  stood  Lord  Scroope, 

He  stood  as  still  as  rock  of  stane ; 
He  scarcely  dared  to  trew  his  eyes, 

When  through  the  water  they  had  gane. 

"  He  is  either  himsel'  a  devil  frae  hell, 
Or  else  his  mother  a  witch  maun  be ; 

I  wadna'  have  ridden  that  wan  water 
For  a'  the  gowd  in  Christentie." ' 


220  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Between  Longtown  and  Langholm  there  was  still 
pointed  out  in  Sir  Walter's  day  a  cottage  where  lived 
the  smith  who  had  the  honour  of  knocking  off  Kinmont 
Willie's  fetters.  Tradition  hands  on  through  the 
centuries  the  story  of  the  smith's  daughter,  who, 
as  a  little  child,  was  roused  at  daybreak  by  a  '  sair 
clatter  '  of  horses  and  shouts  for  her  father,  followed, 
as  the  smith  slept  sound,  by  a  lance  being  thrust 
through  the  window.  Looking  out  in  the  grey  of  the 
morning,  the  child  saw  *  more  gentlemen  than  she  had 
ever  seen  before  in  one  place,  all  on  horseback,  in 
armour  and  dripping  wet — and  that  Kinmont  Willie, 
who  sat  woman-fashion  behind  one  of  them,  was  the 
biggest  carle  she  ever  saw — and  there  was  much 
merriment  in  the  party.' 

Furious  was  the  hive  of  wasps  that  Buccleuch 
brought  about  his  head  by  thus  insultingly  casting 
a  stone  into  the  English  bike.  Queen  Elizabeth's 
royal  resentment  was  unappeasable.  The  Warden 
found  it  expedient  to  magnify  the  number  of  the 
raiders  to  five  hundred,  but  the  truth  leaked  out, 
and  the  Englishmen  of  Carlisle  had  the  extra  bitter- 
ness of  being  butts  for  the  jest  of  every  Scot  on  the 
Border. 

The  success  of  a  venture  so  daring  made  the  raiders 
arrogant.  Between  June  19th  and  July  24th  of  that 
year,  the  spoils  on  the  western  Marches  were  a  thousand 
and  sixty-one  cattle  and  ninety-eight  horses,  and  some 


THE  REIVERS  221 

thirty  steadings  and  other  buildings,  mostly  in  Gils- 
land,  were  burned.  The  English  made  reprisals.  It 
was  on  one  of  them  that  men  were  leashed  '  like  doggis,' 
and  for  this  Buccleuch,  and  Ker  of  Cessford,  took 
rapid  revenge  by  an  incursion  together  into  Tynedale, 
where,  in  broad  daylight,  they  burned  three  hundred 
steadings  and  dwelling-houses,  many  barns,  stables, 
etc.,  slew  with  the  sword  fourteen  of  those  who  had 
been  in  the  Scottish  raid,  and  brought  back  much 
booty. 

King  James  was  hard  put  to  it.  When  Elizabeth 
demanded  Buccleuch's  punishment,  he  shuffled,  and 
demanded  on  his  part  that  she  should  punish  Edmund 
Spenser  for  the  insult  to  the  memory  of  Mary  Queen 
of  Scots,  contained  in  the  description  of  the  'false 
Duessa,'  in  the  Faerie  Queen.  At  last,  however,  he 
had  to  give  in  to  the  continual  and  angry  remon- 
strances of  the  insulted  Queen  of  England.  Buccleuch 
and  Ker  had  both,  at  different  periods,  to  suffer  im- 
prisonment for  the  sin,  in  the  Queen's  eyes,  of  the 
rescue  of  Kinmont  Willie  and  its  bloody  consequences. 

But  Buccleuch  had  even  on  her  a  revenge  worth 
having.  Two  years  after  his  imprisonment,  when 
he  was  on  his  way  with  two  hundred  followers  to  serve 
with  Prince  Maurice  of  Nassau  in  the  Low  Countries — 
from  whence  many  a  Border  raider  never  returned — 
Buccleuch  was  sufficiently  much  received  into  favour 
to  be  permitted  to  go  to  London  and  kiss  the  hand 


222  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

of  her  most  gracious  Majesty.  The  remembrance 
of  Kinmont  Willie  still  rankled  in  that  most  unfor- 
giving of  royal  breasts. 

4  How  dared  you,'  she  imperiously  demanded, 
4  undertake  an  enterprise  so  desperate  and  presump- 
tuous ?  ' 

4  Dared  ?  '  answered  Buccleuch,  l  what  is  it  that  a 
man  dares  not  do  ?  ' 

Elizabeth  turned  impetuously  to  a  lord-in-waiting. 
4  With  ten  thousand  such  men,'  she  said, c  our  brother 
of  Scotland  might  shake  the  firmest  crown  in  Europe.' 

And  so  say  we  still  on  the  Border.  If  the  career 
of  more  than  one  of  our  ancestors  may  have  been 
cut  short  on  the  gallows  tree,  yet  can  we  boast  of  the 
dauntless  courage  and  daring,  the  unfailing  coolness 
and  resourcefulness  in  the  face  of  dire  emergency, 
the  unblemished  loyalty  and  faithfulness  of  those 
who,  in  later  days,  might  have  builded  empires, — the 
men  of  the  Border  Marches. 

*  Though  now  the  hot  hoofs  thunder 

No  more  down  Coquet  side, 
Nor  south  for  white-armed  plunder 

The  wild  moss-troopers  ride, 
When  Beauty  wants  a  warder, 

When  fight  and  foray  start, 
We,  bred  upon  the  Border, 

Have  still  the  reiver's  heart.* 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  223 


CHAPTER  VIII 

MARY   QUEEN   OF   SCOTS 

And  oft  she  sighed,  f  To  be  born  a  King  ! ' 

And  oft  along  the  way, 
When  she  saw  the  lonely  lovers  pass, 

She  has  said,  '  Alack  the  day !' 

D.  G.  ROSSETTI. 

IF  the  spirits  of  the  dead  do  indeed  return  to  scenes 
where  they  have  sinned  and  suffered,  have  fought 
and  died,  have  loved,  and  lived  life  to  the  full,  then 
many  a  lordly  shade  must  have  left  the  dark  Cocytus 
valley  to  ride  down  the  leafy  vale  of  Tweed  and  to 
haunt  the  wan  water  of  the  Border  streams. 

Kings  and  queens  there  are  amongst  the  ghostly 
riders,  among  them  that  queen  from  whose  name  not 
even  Death's  stern  hand  has  been  able  to  remove 
the  strife  of  tongues.  Over  three  hundred  years  have 
passed  since  Mary  Stuart's  gallant  spirit  and  fair  body 
were  brutally  severed,  yet  even  now  she  has  her 
bitter  enemies,  her  faithful  followers,  her  true  lovers. 
For  it  has  been  ordained  that  each  child  that  comes 
into  our  world  must  be  born  a  Roundhead  or  a  Cavalier, 
a  Hanoverian  or  a  Jacobite,  an  admirer  and  upholder 


224  A.  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

of  John  Knox  and  of  '  Good  Queen  Bess,'  or  a  passion- 
ate partisan  of  the  ill-starred  queen  for  whom  many 
of  the  faithful  now  seek  a  place  in  the  calendar  of 
saints  of  that  Church  of  which  she  was  so  loyal  a 
daughter. 

Of  her  writes  one  of  her  stoutest  champions : l  l  Mary 
was  the  Helen  of  the  modern  world.  Discord  came 
to  her  christening  with  the  apple  of  strife,  the  one 
fatal  gift  among  other  gifts  so  goodly  :  beauty,  charm, 
courage,  and  a  loyal  heart.  Round  her  cradle  men 
and  women  intrigued  and  lied ;  many  a  time  her 
grand-uncle  had  practised  to  carry  the  infant  away 
from  her  guarded  castle.  For  her  sake  the  Border 
again  and  again  was  ravaged,  and  Beaton  was  slain, 
and  corpses  lay  in  thousands  on  the  field  of  Pinkie 
Heugh.  .  .  .  For  Mary  men  poured  out  their  lives 
like  water.  She  was  more  to  them  than  a  woman  ; 
she  was  a  religion  and  an  ideal.  But  Fate,  from  her 
cradle,  lay  so  heavy  upon  her  that  no  conceivable 
conduct  of  hers  could  have  steered  her  safely  through 
the  plotting  crowns  and  creeds,  the  rival  dissemblers, 
bigots,  hypocrites,  and  ruffians  who,  with  jealousy, 
and  hatred,  and  desire,  on  every  side  surrounded  her. 
Joyous  by  nature,  and  by  virtue  of  her  youth,  she  was 
condemned  to  a  life  of  tears,  and  destined  to  leave  a 
stained  and  contested  honour.' 

'  God  save  that  sweet  face ! '  was  the  cry  of  the 

1  A.  Lang,  History  of  Scotland. 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  225 

people  of  Edinburgh  when,  as  Queen,  she  first  appeared 
among  them ;  but  it  seemed  at  times  as  though  Mary 
had  help  neither  from  God  nor  man,  but  went  on 
blindly  to  her  doom. 

She  was  still  a  happy  child  in  France  when,  on  the 
Border,  there  had  already  come  to  be  known  well 
as  a  more  than  ordinary  young  dare-devil,  the  man 
whose  black  shadow  we  can  almost  see  behind  her  as 
we  picture  her  riding  away  from  Edinburgh  with  her 
face  turned  to  the  south. 

James  Hepburn,  Earl  of  Bothwell,  came  into  his 
kingdom,  such  as  it  was,  when  he  was  barely  twenty 
years  of  age.  The  c  glorious,  rash,  hazardous  young 
man,'  as  Elizabeth's  ambassador  described  him,  came 
of  wild,  fighting  stock.  He  succeeded  to  impoverished 
estates,  and  to  the  hereditary  offices  of  Lord  High 
Admiral  of  Scotland,  Sheriff  of  Berwick,  Haddington, 
and  Edinburgh,  and  Bailie  of  Lauderdale ;  Hailes 
and  Borthwick  being  his  fortresses.  His  boyhood 
could  scarcely  have  been  profitably  spent,  as  it  mainly 
was  spent  with  his  great-uncle,  Patrick  Hepburn, 
Bishop  of  Moray,  than  whom  few  greater  profligates 
ever  wore  a  mitre.  Part  of  his  education  was  acquired 
in  France,  and  handsome,  red-haired  James  Hepburn 
was  not  only  the  most  fearlessly  daring  of  warriors, 
but  was  a  youth  of  courtly  accomplishments.  He 
wrote  French  well,  in  the  Italian  hand  that  was  then 
new,  gracefully,  firmly,  and  clearly.  He  was  a 


226  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

classical  scholar,  and  although  his  enemies  declared 
that  he  studied  only  the  black  arts,  and,  by  sinful 
magic,  won  his  way  at  last  to  the  heart  of  a  queen, 
he  has  left  behind  him  books — one  of  which  may  be 
seen  in  the  Edinburgh  University  Library — which 
show  that  he  deemed  it  worth  while  to  possess  French 
treatises  and  translations  dealing  with  military 
matters,  and  to  have  them  exquisitely  bound.  He 
would  seem  to  have  been  one  of  those  who  believe 
in  no  man's  or  woman's  virtue,  because  it  is  impossible 
for  them  to  believe  in  their  own.  One  does  not 
know  what  came  between  him  and  Dame  Janet 
Beaton,  to  whom,  as  a  lad,  he  was  handfasted.  A 
turbulent  pair  they  would  have  made.  Dame  Janet 
was  a  niece  of  the  Cardinal,  and  became  the  Lady 
Creichton  and  then  Lady  Preston — she  was  divorced 
from  Simon  Preston  of  Craigmillar — before  she  finally 
became  the  Lady  Buccleuch,  the  wizard  lady  of  the 
Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel.  She  it  was  who  urged  on 
her  son  to  avenge  his  father's  murder,  and  who,  as  a 
widow,  led  an  avenging  army  of  two  hundred  of  the 
Clan  Scott  from  Branxholm  to  the  kirk  of  St.  Mary 
of  the  Lowes,  and  broke  open  the  doors  to  seize  the 
laird  of  Cranstoun. 

To  add  to  his  other  charms,  Bothwell  possessed  to 
a  marked  degree  what  Lord  Rosebery  has  called  l  the 
engaging  quality  of  recklessness.'  When  the  cause 
of  Mary  of  Guise  was  not  one  which  it  was  profitable 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  227 

for  any  young  man  to  uphold,  Bothwell  gave  her  the 
support  of  his  sword.  In  1558,  when  she  had  been 
deserted  by  her  nobles  at  Kelso,  he  was  harrying 
the  English  border  on  her  behalf.  He  was  a  member 
of  Privy  Council,  fought  for  her  in  her  war  with  the 
Lords  of  the  Congregation,  and  was  skilled  as  a 
plunderer  of  worthy  tradesmen  during  the  siege  of 
Leith.  In  1559,  near  Haddington,  he  seized  and 
robbed  a  messenger  who  was  carrying  £1000  in  English 
gold  from  Elizabeth  to  the  Lords.  In  1560  he  was 
sent  as  the  emissary  of  the  Queen  Mother  to  France, 
to  seek  aid  there,  and  in  Denmark,  on  his  way  thither, 
pour  passer  le  temps,  he  became  betrothed  to  Anne 
Throndsson,  a  lady  of  noble  birth,  deserting  her, 
shortly  afterwards,  in  the  Netherlands,  but  retaining 
her  dowry  as  remembrance  of  their  brief  wedded  life. 
In  France  his  amours  were  notorious  ;  equally  notori- 
ous were  they  in  his  own  land.  To  him,  apparently, 
no  woman  was  virtuous. 

'  His  own  Queen  and  the  Queen  of  England  would 
not  together  make  one  honest  woman,'  said  this 
'  glorious,  rash '  young  man,  who  was  one  of  the 
first  to  throw  mud  on  the  name  of  the  girl  queen, 
whose  youth  and  widow's  weeds,  and  the  fact  that 
he  was  one  of  the  seven  lords  entrusted  by  her  to 
arrange  for  her  return  to  Scotland,  might  have  spared 
her  his  assaults. 

In  spite  of  his  faithfulness  to  her  mother's  cause, 


228  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Mary  might  well  have  hated  him.  Maybe  she  did, 
in  those  early  days,  in  spite  of  her  love  for  deeds 
of  '  hardiness  and  valiance '  even  by  her  enemies, 
but  she  was  never  allowed  to  forget  him.  In  the 
tragedy  of  Mary  Stuart,  Both  well  was  the  strong 
man  who  is  always  there,  a  hero  —  or  villain  —  for 
pit  and  gallery ;  ever  possessing  a  prominent  place 
on  life's  stage,  ruffling  it  openly  and  loudly,  with 
drawn  sword  and  voice  of  no  uncertain  sound.  To 
her,  who  had  the  soul  of  a  man  in  the  body  of  a 
woman,  his  dauntless  force,  his  virility,  must  ever 
have  made  appeal.  It  was  to  him  at  last  that  her 
sex  betrayed  her.  She  had  not  long  been  queen 
at  Holyrood  ere  he  incurred  her  royal  displeasure 
by  being  one  of  the  principals  in  an  unseemly 
street  brawl  on  a  more  than  usually  large  scale. 
Then  followed  denunciation  by  the  crazed  Earl  of 
Arran  of  a  plot  of  Bothwell's  for  Mary's  abduction. 
The  evidence  was  certainly  not  all  that  could  be  desired, 
but  into  Edinburgh  Castle  was  placed  this  cock  of  the 
Borders.  We  might  trust  him  to  break  prison  and 
escape  to  his  own  grim  castle  of  Hermitage  in  Liddes- 
dale,  whose  only  one  fair  memory  in  a  dark  history  of 
violence  and  of  crime  is  the  flying  visit  of  a  beautiful 
queen.  The  power  wielded  by  the  Earl  of  Moray 
was  now  too  great  to  be  withstood  even  by  Bothwell 
and  those  lawless  broken  clans  of  Hepburns,  Hays, 
and  others  who  were  his  devoted  followers,  and 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  229 

Bothwell  had  to  flee  to  France.  But  storms  drove 
him  ashore  at  Holy  Island,  and  there  he  was  con- 
strained to  stay  as  Queen  Elizabeth's  prisoner  for 
the  two  years  that  followed.  That  affair  of  the 
thousand  fair  gold  pieces  that  she  was  sending  north 
with  such  secrecy  was  not  likely  to  have  slipped  the 
memory  of  the  English  Queen.  It  was  Mary  herself 
who  pled  for  his  liberty,  and  he  was  set  free,  and  took 
a  command  in  the  Scots  Guards,  where  the  name  of 
Hepburn  was  later  to  hold  such  honourable  place. 
To  show  how  little  any  authority,  royal  or  otherwise, 
meant  to  him,  he  had  to  return  without  leave  to  the 
Border ;  but  it  was  so  easily  seen  that  nothing  was  to 
be  gained  by  remaining,  and  so  much  to  be  lost,  that  he 
went  back  to  France  very  shortly  before  the  Fates  had 
driven  their  plaything,  Mary,  into  marriage  with 
Darnley. 

All  the  glamour  of  her  husband's  beaux  yeux 
had  entirely  worn  off  ere  Bothwell  and  Mary  met 
again.  She  had  miserably  realised  that  instead  of 
the  strong  man's  tender  sympathy  and  fearless 
spirit  that  she  had  coveted  to  have  for  friend  and 
protector  in  her  loneliness  and  life  of  hazardous  respon- 
sibility, there  was  in  that  lusty,  long-limbed  body  of 
her  husband  the  soul  of  a  pettish,  spoilt,  selfish  child, 
the  temperament  of  a  vicious  profligate.  His  infideli- 
ties were  an  open  secret.  In  public  he  disgraced 
himself  and  his  queen  by  his  drunkenness  and  insolence 


230  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

towards  her.  '  I  am  but  young,'  was  the  only  plea 
worth  consideration  that  the  wretched  lad  ever  offered. 
Bothwell  was,  no  doubt,  the  greater  villain,  but  his 
vices  were  those  of  strength  and  not  of  weakness. 
Presumably  he  drank  rather  more  deeply  than  did 
Darnley,  but  he  had  the  Borderer's  head,  and  the 
iron  constitution  of  the  men  of  the  Marches.  Darnley 
demanded  the  Wardenship  of  the  Border  for  his 
father,  the  Earl  of  Lennox,  but  Mary  had  already 
had  overmuch  of  that  family  ;  weaklings  were  never 
to  her  taste.  Bothwell  was  recalled  from  France, 
his  honours  restored  to  him,  and  he  received  the 
appointment,  and,  in  February  1566,  was  given  further 
gracious  proof  of  royal  forgiveness  and  favour  on  his 
marriage  with  Lady  Jean  Gordon,  sister  of  the  Earl 
of  Huntly,  in  the  Canongate  Church  of  Edinburgh, 
by  the  queen  giving  the  bride  her  wedding  gown — 
4  cloth  of  silver,  lined  with  taffeta  ' — and  signing  the 
marriage  contract.  Lady  Jean  loved  another,  and 
fraternal  persuasion  managed  the  match;  but,  such 
was  the  power  of  Bothwell,  that  she  fell  in  love  with 
her  husband  after  marriage.  One  is  glad  to  think 
that  this  virtuous  lady  made  two  successful  unions 
later  on  in  life,  marrying,  when  Bothwell's  successor 
died,  her  first  love, 

Bothwell's  honeymoon  was  not  over  when  he  was 
called  upon  to  stand  by  his  Queen. 

In  that  ugly  plot,  that  cowardly  murder  in  the 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  231 

little  oak  room  at  Holyrood,  when,  clutching  the 
skirts  of  his  royal  patron,  in  dire  terror  of  his  doom, 
David  Rizzio  was  foully  done  to  death,  several 
Borderers  helped  to  deal  the  fifty-six  wounds,  but  in 
it  Bothwell  had  no  part.  He  was  one  of  those  who 
crossed  swords  with  the  escaping  assassins  in  the 
courtyard,  and  he  enabled  Mary  the  next  night  to 
escape  from  Holyrood  with  its  bloodstained  floor, 
and  to  find  sanctuary  at  Dunbar. 

In  June  of  that  year  James  vi.  was  born,  and,  in 
the  following  August,  Mary  and  Darnley,  Moray, 
Bothwell,  and  other  lords  of  high  degree  hunted  in 
Meggatdale.  The  sport  was  poor,  the  royal  preserves 
had  been  poached,  and  Darnley's  uncontrolled  temper 
was  never  proof  against  the  buffets  of  fortune,  how- 
ever slight.  The  more  hardly  must  his  surly  pettish- 
ness  have  been  judged  by  one  of  whom,  in  a  dreary 
campaign  in  the  Highlands,  when  the  weather  was 
4  extreame  fowle  and  colde,'  an  English  ambassador 
relates  that  he  '  never  saw  her  merrier,  never  dismayed." 
She  longed  to  be  a  man,  she  said  then ;  c  to  lie  all 
night  in  the  fields,  or  to  walk  upon  the  causeway  with 
a  pack  or  knapschall  (head-piece),  a  Glasgow  buckler 
and  a  broadsword.'  The  unlicked  cub,  her  husband, 
was  of  the  stuff  of  which  the  wife-beater  of  the 
slums  is  made.  Men  he  dared  not  bully,  but  Mary 
was  a  woman,  and  his  wife.  To  her  he  was  '  brutally 
insolent,'  and  in  a  fit  of  childish  sulks  went  off, 


232  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

leaving  her  and  her  company  behind  on  the 
moors. 

In  September,  Border  affairs  being  far  from  peaceful, 
the  Privy  Council  made  proclamation  that  the  Queen 
and  Darnley  would  hold  '  justice  airs,'  or  circuit 
courts,  at  Jedburgh  on  October  8th.  Darnley  was 
then  again  sulking  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Edinburgh, 
and  Mary  had  to  go  without  him.  Bothwell,  Warden 
of  the  Marches,  had,  meantime,  demanded  surrender 
from  the  more  turbulent  of  the  Border  reivers,  and 
had  captured  and  imprisoned  those  who  defied  him, 
in  his  castle  of  Hermitage. 

There  was  then  a  hardy  freebooter  who  claimed  to 
be  chief  of  the  Elliot  clan  and  captain  of  Hermitage, 
and  whose  deeds  had  been  metrically  described  by 
Maitland  of  Lethington.  Jock  Elliot  and  his  fellows 

'  Leave  nor  spindle,  spoon,  nor  spit, 
Bed,  bolster,  blanket,  shirt,  nor  sheet ; 
John  o'  the  Park, 
Rypis  chest  and  ark  ; 
For  all  such  wark 
He  is  right  meet.' 

Still,  in  the  districts  that  once  were  spoiled  by  him, 
is  '  Little  Jock  Elliot '  a  hero.  And  although  we  may 
only  know  the  chorus  of  the  old  song  that  has  im- 
mortalised him,  the  rousing  air  that  has  led  many  a 
Border  lad  into  the  fight  has  been  supplied  with  equally 
rousing  words  by  one  who  was  himself  a  '  Jethart 
callant J 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  233 

'  My  castle  is  aye  my  ain, 

An'  berried  it  never  shall  be  ; 
For  I  maun  fa'  ere  it 's  taen, 

An'  wha  daur  meddle  wi'  me  ? 
Wi'  my  kuit  i'  the  rib  o'  my  naig, 

My  sword  hingin'  doun  by  my  knee, 
For  man  I  am  never  afraid, 
An'  wha  daur  meddle  wi'  me  ? 
Wha  daur  meddle  wi'  me  ? 
Wha  daur  meddle  wi'  me  ? 
Oh,  my  name  is  little  Jock  Elliot, 
An'  wha  daur  meddle  wi'  me  ? 

I  munt  my  gude  naig  wi'  a  will 

When  the  fray 's  in  the  wund,  an'  he 
Cocks  his  lugs  as  he  tugs  for  the  hill 

That  enters  the  South  countrie, 
Where  pricking  and  spurring  are  rife, 
And  the  bluid  boils  up  like  the  sea, 
But  Southrons  gang  doon  i'  the  strife  ! 
An'  wha  daur  meddle  wi'  me  ? 
Wha  daur  meddle  wi'  me  ? 
Wha  daur  meddle  wi'  me  ? 
Oh,  my  name  is  little  Jock  Elliot, 
An'  wha  daur  meddle  wi'  me  ? ' 

On  the  day  that  the  Queen  rode  out  from  Edin- 
burgh with  Moray  and  a  large  escort  of  other  nobles, 
Bothwell  came  to  the  park  and  took  little  Jock  Elliot. 
As  they  rode  together  towards  Hermitage,  Jock,  who 
had  that  conscience  void  of  offence  that  was  the 
precious  heritage  of  the  Border  reiver,  inquired  of 
his  captor  if,  having  appeared  at  the  Assizes,  his  life 
would  be  spared, — if,  so  to  speak,  he  would  be  told 
not  to  be  naughty  again,  and  allowed  to  go  free. 


234  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Said  Bothwell,  '  Gif  ane  assyises  (assize)  wald  mak 
him  clene,  he  was  hertlie  contentit,  but  he  behuvit  to 
pas  to  the  Quenis  grace.' 

This  was  much  too  little  of  a  promise  to  suit 
Jock.  Reivers  had  been  hanged  by  kings  before 
his  day,  and  he  had  no  ambition  for  this  royal  re- 
cognition. He  slipped  from  his  horse  and  took  to 
his  heels :  but  in  Bothwell  he  found  his  match. 
The  Warden  put  a  pistol-shot  into  the  fugitive,  dis- 
mounted, and  gave  chase.  The  ground  was  rough, 
and  he  stumbled  and  fell,  whereupon  Jock  turned 
back,  and  gave  his  prostrate  enemy  three  vicious 
stabs,  one  in  the  hand,  one  in  the  head,  and  one  in 
the  body,  with,  no  doubt,  a  hearty  desire  that  they 
would  prove  mortal, — '  Wha  daur  meddle  wi'  me  ?  ' 
Fallen  and  wounded  though  he  was,  Bothwell  drew 
his  whinger  and  drove  it  twice  into  Jock's  breast 
before  he  swooned  away.  Still  swooning  he  was 
when  his  servants  found  him  and  carried  him  off  to 
Hermitage,  but  Jock,  sorely  wounded,  managed  to 
stagger  on  for  yet  another  mile  and  reach  a  hill  top, 
where  they  found  him  dead.  Probably  it  was  the 
death  he  would  have  craved — a  man's  death,  not  a 
felon's, — a  free  man,  looking  up  with  dying  eyes  at 
the  wide  free  sky,  the  lark  singing  high  above  him, 
benty  grass  for  his  pillow,  winds  that  swept  across 
hills  and  moors  sighing  over  his  cold,  still  face. 

Bothwell  had  been  well  '  daggered.'     Some  months 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  235 

later,  when  Mary  was  looking  at  her  husband's  florid, 
flushed  face  (wine  and  temper  probably  did  not 
improve  the  fair  complexion  which  at  first  she  had 
held  for  one  of  his  charms),  she  told  him  that  it  would 
do  him  good  '  to  be  a  little  daggered  and  to  bleed  as 
much  as  my  Lord  of  Bothwell  had  lately  done.' 

The  royal  train  had  reached  Borthwick  Castle 
when  news  came  to  them  of  Bothwell's  wounds. 
According  to  the  lying  tale  of  Buchanan,  one  of  the 
most  slanderously  and  unscrupulously  ill-tongued  of 
her  enemies,  c  When  news  thereof  was  brought  to 
Borthwick  to  the  Queen,  she  flingeth  away  in  haste 
like  a  mad  woman,  by  great  journeys  in  post,  in  the 
sharp  time  of  winter,  first  to  Melrose,  and  then  to 
Jedworth.' 

The  true  story  is  that  Mary  rode  on,  as  at  first 
arranged,  to  Melrose,  then  to  Jedburgh,  where,  on 
October  9th,  she  opened  her  Circuit  Court.  The 
Court  sat  for  six  days,  closing  on  the  14th.  On  the 
10th  and  llth  she  presided  at  meetings  of  the  Privy 
Council,  on  the  15th  received  Le  Croc,  the  French 
ambassador.  On  the  16th  she  set  off  for  Hermitage 
to  make  inquiry  for  the  wounded  Warden.  Her 
'  enemies,  persecutors,  and  slanderers ' — and,  whatever 
may  have  been  her  sins,  Mary  Stuart  had  always 
more  than  her  fair  share  of  them — saw  no  reason  but 
her  '  outrageous  lust '  for  such  a  visit.  Reports  of 
Bothwell's  grave  illness  and  great  weakness  must  have 


236  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

reached  her  at  Jedburgh.  It  had  even  been  currently 
reported  that  he  was  dead.  To  make  personal  inquiry 
for  a  grievously  sick  man  whom  she  had  come  to  regard 
as  one  of  her  most  trusted  and  valued  servants,  must 
seem,  to  a  mind  that  is  not  prurient,  the  natural  and 
innocent  action  of  a  sympathetic  woman  and  a 
gracious  queen.  Moreover,  in  all  surety,  she  was 
guarded  by  a  grave  band  of  chaperons.  The  Earl  of 
Moray,  the  Earl  of  Huntly  (Bothwell's  brother-in-law), 
and  Mr.  Secretary  Lethington  formed  part  of  her 
escort  when,  on  her  white  palfrey,  she  rode  away  from 
the  old  grey  house  with  its  little  windows,  and  its 
orchard  of  pear-trees,  in  the  Backgate  of  Jedburgh, 
on  that  October  day.  The  Border  country  was  not 
a  safe  one  for  travellers  in  those  times,  and  with  the 
Warden  lying  wounded  in  his  castle,  little  Jock  Elliot 
slain  by  him,  and  public  feeling  at  the  punishment 
that  had  been  meted  out  to  certain  reivers  running 
high,  Mary  risked  something  besides  the  assault  of 
evil  tongues.  But  always  she  showed  4  a  readiness 
to  expose  herself  to  all  perils  in  hope  of  victory.5 
She  was  but  a  girl,  and  her  crown  must  have  weighed 
heavy  during  those  six  days  of  solemn  consideration 
of  affairs  of  state.  To  be  out  of  doors  again,  on  the 
back  of  a  good  horse,  on  an  October  day,  when  dead 
leaves  smell  fragrant  and  the  bracken  on  the  Border 
moors  is  red,  and  the  burns  splash  and  foam  in  their 
haste  to  reach  the  sea,  and  when  robbers  might  be 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  237 

expected  to  challenge  at  any  moment  in  the  dangerous 
country  she  was  riding  through, — it  was  an  adventure 
just  after  Mary's  gallant  heart.  The  route  her  suite 
chose  for  her  was  apparently  the  longest,  if  the  safest 
one, — by  Swinnie  Moor,  into  Rule  Water,  across 
Earlside  Moor,  crossing  the  Slitrig  below  Stobs,  then, 
probably,  leaving  Hawick  to  the  right,  by  Whitlaw, 
Flex,  and  Priesthaugh,  between  the  hills  to  the  head  of 
the  Braidlee  Burn,  and  from  thence  down  to  Hermitage. 
We  can  see  the  grey  mist,  the  *  Liddesdale  drow,' 
clinging  to  the  hills,  grey  mist  that  was  not  long  in 
turning  into  rain  that  drenched  the  riders  through 
and  through  long  ere  they  reached  Hermitage.  The 
Queen,  still  in  her  dripping  garments,  interviewed 
Bothwell,  made  arrangements  for  the  victualling 
of  the  garrison,  and  signed  the  appointment  of  one, 
George  Sinclair,  to  a  certain  office  in  Edinburgh. 
The  few  hours  spent  there  were  occupied  by  business 
of  state.  '  Chambering  and  wantonness '  were,  on 
this  occasion,  the  lying  suggestion  of  the  unclean  minds 
of  those  who  hated  her.  Undaunted  by  the  weather 
and  by  the  thirty  miles  of  heavy  riding  which  she 
had  already  had,  she  set  off,  when  the  horses  had  been 
rested,  for  the  return  journey.  The  short  October 
day  left  the  party  in  storm  and  darkness  in  the  lonely 
passes  of  the  hills.  Mary,  pricking  on  ahead  of  her 
escort,  at  the  Braidlee  Burn,  near  the  March  between 
Teviotdale  and  Liddesdale,  rode  into  a  bog  in  which 


238  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

many  a  horse  had  perished,  and  from  which  she  and 
her  palfrey  were  with  difficulty  extricated.  The 
*  Queen's  Mire '  is  its  name  to  this  day,  and  there  is 
a  tale  of  a  beautiful  chased  spur  that  she  lost  in  the 
bog,  and  of  its  recovery  not  many  years  ago,  while 
as  late  as  1823  there  was  found  on  a  molehill  on  the 
line  of  hill  road  that  leads  to  Hermitage  an  antique 
gold  watch  that  is  supposed  to  have  been  dropped 
by  one  of  her  retinue  in  the  dark  homeward  ride  on 
that  stormy  night  of  October.  They  reached  Jed- 
burgh  at  last,  having  ridden  in  one  day,  in  cruel 
weather,  almost  sixty  miles.  Her  servants  marvelled 
at  the  amount  she  had  come  through  that  day. 

Said  the  Queen, '  Troth  it  is  I  am  but  a  woman,  but 
yet  I  am  more  than  a  woman  in  that  I  could  find  hi  my 
heart  to  see  and  behold  that  which  any  man  durst  do, 
and  can  find  in  my  heart  to  do  anything  that  a  man 
durst  do,  if  my  strength  would  serve  me  thereto/ — 
a  speech  quoted  as  evidence  against  her  in  days  when 
her  enemies  called  her  murderess. 

But  her  physical  strength,  never  great,  in  this  case 
did  not  serve  her.  Next  morning  the  Queen  was  in  a 
high  fever,  with  violent  pains  and  constant  sickness. 
The  diagnosis  in  those  days  was,  of  course,  simple,  the 
physician  having  little  choice  between  poison  and 
witchcraft.  In  the  case  of  a  reigning  sovereign,  poison 
was  naturally  suspected,  and,  in  any  case,  the  Queen's 
physicians  despaired  of  her  life.  In  later  days,  haema- 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  239 

temesis,  or  an  effusion  of  blood  into  the  stomach, 
has  been  suggested  by  authorities.  The  modern  lay 
mind  flies  at  once  to  appendicitis.  But  whatever  the 
illness  may  have  been,  the  Queen  was  indeed  sick  unto 
death.  When  the  news  reached  Edinburgh,  all  the 
bells  were  rung,  and  the  churches  were  kept  open  for 
public  prayer.  Believing  herself  to  be  in  extremis  she 
took  formal  farewell  of  Moray  and  her  other  councillors, 
made  all  arrangements  for  the  care  of  her  kingdom 
and  of  her  infant  son,  disposed  of  her  personal  belong- 
ings, and  made  her  peace  with  God.  On  the  ninth 
day  of  her  illness,  after  a  terrible  paroxysm  of  pain, 
she  fainted,  and  remained  cold,  rigid,  and  unconscious 
for  several  hours.  Her  household  believed  her  to  be 
dead,  and  opened  the  windows  that  her  spirit  might 
have  free  egress.  The  Earl  of  Moray  wasted  no  time 
in  vain  regrets,  but  laid  hands  on  her  plate  and  jewels. 
Arrangements  were  made  for  her  funeral,  and  '  blacks ' 
were  ordered  for  the  mourners  and  members  of  the 
royal  household.  She  lay  from  nine  A.M.  until 
nearly  one  o'clock  before  it  occurred  to  her  French 
doctor  to  use  extreme  methods  and  so  to  restore 
consciousness. 

Darnley,  meantime,  employed  himself  in  'halkand 
and  huntand '  in  the  west  country,  and  made  no 
attempt  to  come  and  see  his  apparently  dying 
Queen.  '  This  is  a  fault  which  I  cannot  excuse,' 
wrote  the  French  ambassador,  then  at  Jedburgh,  to 


240  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

the  Archbishop  of  Glasgow.  For  shame's  sake  he 
had  to  come  at  last,  lodging  for  the  one  night  he  spent 
in  the  town,  not  at  Lady  Fernihirst's  house,  where 
Mary  lay,  but  at  a  house  belonging  to  Lord  Home, 
now  demolished.  His  reception  did  not  please  him, 
and  still  nursing  the  wounded  feelings  beside  which 
the  sufferings  and  probable  death  of  his  sick  wife 
counted  for  nought,  he  went  off  next  day.  Not  once, 
but  many  times,  did  Darnley's  unreliable  weakness 
and  the  childish  pettiness  of  his  selfish  egoism  show 
themselves  as  foil  for  BothwelPs  strength  and  manli- 
ness. '  She  concealeth  no  cowardice,  even  in  her 
friends.'  Mary  loved  courage  in  friend  and  foe,  and  she 
had  come  to  count  upon  Bothwell.  As  soon  as  it 
was  possible  for  him  to  be  moved,  he  was  borne  on  a 
litter  all  these  weary  miles  of  rough  road  from  Hermit- 
age to  Jedburgh,  that  he  might  be  near  his  Queen  in 
her  dire  sickness.  Once  out  of  danger,  that  tune  of 
convalescence  in  the  old  house  at  Jedburgh  must  have 
had  its  pleasures.  Bothwell  was  an  interesting  com- 
panion. He  spoke  the  French  tongue  that  she  so 
dearly  loved,  and  which  Darnley  barely  knew.  To 
one,  John  Hume,  ere  she  left,  she  paid  forty  shillings 
for  playing  to  her  on  the  lute  during  those  weeks, 
and  to  John  Heron  the  sum  of  four  pounds  for  playing 
'  on  the  pipe  and  quhissil.'  What  the  Border  town 
could  not  provide  in  the  way  of  luxuries  for  the  invalid 
was  sent  from  Edinburgh.  c  Twenty  apples  and 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  241 

pomegranates  and  six  citrons  '  are  amongst  the  items 
on  one  list.  She  had  the  deft  fingers  of  the  true 
artist,  in  tapestry  and  all  needlework,  and  that  she 
and  her  Maries  were  not  idle  in  those  days,  the  beauti- 
ful piece  of  tapestry  that  was  until  lately  to  be  seen 
in  '  Queen  Mary's  House '  at  Jedburgh,  exists  to 
prove.  To  the  High  Treasurer  she  wrote  an  order 
for  materials  for  work  :  '  After  the  sight  of  this 
writ  ye  shall  not  fail  to  send  a  servant  of  your  own 
in  all  possible  haste  to  Edinburgh,  and  cause  him  to 
bring  to  this  town  twenty  ells  of  red  champit  chamlet 
of  silk,  with  twenty  ells  white  plaiding,  four  ells 
white  taffety,  three  ells  fine  black  velvet,  four  ells 
small  lyons  canvas,  six  ounces  black  stitching  silk, 
with  a  pound  of  black  thread.  This  in  no  way  shall 
ye  fail  to  do,  keeping  this  writ  for  your  warrant. 
Subscribed  with  our  hand  at  Jedburgh  the  penult 
day  of  October  1566. — Marie  R.' 

By  November  8th  her  strength  was  sufficiently  re- 
gained for  her  to  leave  Jedburgh,  having  first  paid  Lady 
Fernihirst  the  sum  of  forty  pounds  for  the  thirty  days 
during  which  she  had  rented  her  house,  and  having 
given  twenty  pounds  to  the  poor  of  the  town  as  a 
thank-offering  for  her  recovery.  It  is  hard  to  see 
how  she  could  fail  to  leave  friends  behind  her,  but 
the  poison  widely  spread  by  those  pillars  of  Presby- 
terianism,  Knox  and  Buchanan,  had  filtered  amongst 
the  people  even  before  their  Queen  had  done  anything 


242  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

to  bring  upon  herself  the  stone-throwing  of  a  self- 
righteous  mob.  Even  then  the  voice  of  the  godly 
Knox  might  have  been  heard  at  Berwick,  like  distant 
thunder,  upraised  in  condemnation  of  the  Popish 
Queen.  The  matrimonial  affairs  of  the  Reformer 
seem  to  be  associated  with  the  Border,  for  this  damna- 
tory reviler  of  fleshly  lusts  married  at  Berwick,  when 
close  upon  fifty,  Miss  Marjory  Bowes,  the  youth- 
ful daughter  of  one  of  the  numerous  devout  ladies 
whose  spiritual  adviser  he  had  been.  His  second 
wife,  daughter  of  Lord  Ochiltrie,  was  a  child  of 
sixteen  years  of  age  when  he,  a  widower  of  fifty-nine, 
made  her  his  bride.  One  cannot  feel  surprised  that 
the  second  Mrs.  John  Knox  in  her  next  venture  made 
no  attempt  to  keep  up  to  the  Knox  standard,  but 
married  Ker  of  Faldonside,  one  of  the  murderers  of 
Rizzio,  as  bloody  a  ruffian  as  ever  rode  the  Marches. 
From  Jedburgh  Queen  Mary  rode  to  Kelso,  spend- 
ing two  nights  there.  The  little  grey  town  by  the 
Tweed  must  have  been  looking  its  chilliest  in  that 
November  weather.  From  thence  she  went  to  Home 
Castle,  the  old  castle  that  still  proudly  overlooks  the 
Merse  from  its  sentinel  post  on  the  south  slope  of  the 
Lammermuirs.  Through  the  Merse,  by  Wedderburn 
and  Langton,  she  rode  towards  Berwick.  With  an 
escort  of  nearly  one  thousand  horsemen  she  rode  to 
the  English  boundary,  that  she  might  have  a  view  of 
the  town  for  the  possession  of  which  so  much  good 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  243 

Scots  and  English  blood  had  been  shed.  Sir  John 
Forster,  Deputy  -  Governor,  did  the  honours.  He 
and  sixty  horsemen,  captains  and  gentlemen  all, 
went  with  her  first  to  Halidon  Hill,  and  then  to  a 
height,  west  of  the  town,  from  whence  she  could  see 
the  grey  walls  and  bridge,  the  towers  and  spires,  the 
red  roofs,  and  the  masts  of  the  ships  lying  in  the 
harbour  of  the  old  town  by  the  fierce  North  Sea.  As 
she  viewed  it,  a  royal  salute  was  discharged  in  her 
honour,  and  the  courteous  Forster  and  his  men 
accompanied  her  as  far  as  Eyemouth  on  her  return 
journey.  From  thence  she  went  to  Coldingham  for 
a  night,  and,  by  way  of  Dunbar  and  Tantallon,  on 
to  Craigmillar  Castle,  reaching  there  on  the  20th  of 
November.  Its  gaunt  grey  walls  face  us  still,  when 
we  look  south  from  Edinburgh,  and  on  chill  winter 
days,  when  the  trees  are  etched  in  purple  against  the 
snow  and  all  the  hills  are  white,  we  can  see  the  Queen 
gazing  out,  with  cheerless  heart,  from  her  high 
windows  at  the  cheerless  landscape. 

'  I  am  tired  of  my  life,'  she  many  times  told  Le  Croc 
while  she  stayed  there.  '  Would  that  I  had  died  at 
Jedworth ! '  was  her  bitter  cry  still  later,  when  her 
courage  had  all  but  ebbed  away. 

Affairs  marched  after  that  court  at  Jedburgh. 
In  intimacy  and  in  power — in  what  else,  God  alone 
knows — Bothwell  continued  to  rise.  It  may  have 
been  the  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection — at  last, 


244  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

she  may  have  thought,  there  had  come  to  her  the 
glorious  mastery  of  a  real  love — that  rendered  Mary's 
dissolute  boy-husband  more  odious  in  her  eyes. 
More  probably  it  was  that  the  scales  of  illusion  had 
dropped  from  them,  and  that  to  her  had  befallen  one 
of  the  most  hideous  calamities  that  can  come  to  man 
or  to  woman — the  tragedy  of  having  to  look,  a  living 
creature,  at  the  corpse  of  a  dead  love. 

In  December  Darnley  caught  a  virulent  form  of 
smallpox  and  was  laid  up  in  the  house  of  his  father, 
the  Earl  of  Lennox,  at  Glasgow.  Mary  wrote  to  him, 
offering  to  come  and  see  him— and  it  took  a  brave 
woman  to  make  the  offer.  A  verbal  message  came 
back  to  her  through  a  groom. 

'  Tell  the  Queen,'  Darnley  said,  c  that  I  wish  that 
Glasgow  might  be  Hermitage,  and  I  the  Earl  of 
Bothwell  as  I  lie  here,  and  I  doubt  not  that  she 
would  be  quickly  with  me  undesired.' 

Yet  she  brooked  the  unpardonable  insult  and  went 
to  see  him  in  his  sick-chamber,  all  his  boyish  grace  of 
pink-cheeked  comeliness  departed  from  him,  loathsome 
and  unsightly,  hi  a  taffeta  mask  to  protect  his  dis- 
figurement. Together  they  returned  from  Glasgow, 
and  a  raven  left  one  of  the  many  gallows  trees  that 
then,  with  their  ghastly  burdens,  dotted  the  high- 
ways, and  followed  the  royal  train  to  light  on  the 
roof  at  Kirk  o'  Field,  there  to  prophesy  doom  by  its 
sinister  croaking. 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  245 

Less  than  a  month  later,  Darnley  lay  dead  at  Kirk 
o'  Field.  The  Borders  had  not  been  behindhand 
in  providing  assassins.  In  Rizzio's  murder,  Ker  of 
Faldonside,  two  Tweedies  of  Drummelzier,  a  Johnston, 
a  Cockburn,  and  many  Douglases  took  part.  Besides 
James  Hepburn,  Lord  Bothwell,  there  were  in  the 
band  that  put  a  sudden  end  to  the  debaucheries  and 
insolences  of  a  depraved  and  diseased  weakling, 
two  Ormistons,  Hepburn  of  Bowton,  and  young 
Hay  of  Talla. 

'  Wild  your  cradle  glen, 
Young  Hay  of  Talla ; 
Stern  the  wild  wind's  roar 
Round  the  old  peel  tower, 
Young  Hay  of  Talla. 

Night  round  Kirk  o'  Field, 

Young  Hay  of  Talla ; 
Light  faint  in  the  room, 
Darnley  sleeps  in  the  gloom, 

Young  Hay  of  Talla. 

Ah  !  the  young  form  moves, 

Young  Hay  of  Talla  ; 
Hold  him  grim, —  hold  grim, 
Till  quivers  not  a  limb, 

Young  Hay  of  Talla. 

Now  the  dread  deed 's  done, 

Young  Hay  of  Talla  ; 
Throw  the  corpse  o'er  the  wall, 
Give  it  dead  dog's  fall, 

Young  Hay  of  Talla.' 


246  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Quickly  on  to  her  doom  thereafter  hurried  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots.  The  ten  days  before  her  marriage 
with  Bothwell,  when,  possibly,  she  fancied  she  had 
at  length  a  lover  whose  passion  was  as  fierce  as  the 
waves  of  the  grey  sea  that  beat  against  the  outer 
walls  of  the  castle  of  Dunbar  where  she  stayed  with 
him,  whose  love  was  as  strong  as  his  passion,  and 
whose  truth  and  tenderness  were  unending,  was 
possibly  the  only  time  when  happiness  was  truly 
hers — if  hers  it  could  have  been  with  a  pale,  accusing 
ghost  always  making  a  third.  A  wedding-day  when 
she  wept  and  asked  for  a  knife  to  kill  herself,  defeat 
at  Carberry,  and  a  hideous  welcome  in  Edinburgh 
from  those  who  had  so  lately  asked  God's  blessing  on 
her  bonny  face,  then  Loch  Leven, — a  piteous  tale  it 
is.  In  the  dreary  year  at  Loch  Leven  she  was  fated 
once  more  to  look  at  the  corpse  of  a  dead  love. 
Darnley  murdered  her  love  for  him,  and  so  did  Both- 
well.  She  was,  as  one  of  the  Casket  Letters  declares, 
*  the  most  faythfull  lover  that  ever  he  had.'  Honour, 
conscience,  her  throne,  herself,  she  was  ready  to 
sacrifice  for  him  who  professed  himself  her  lover. 
The  vehemence  of  his  passion  had  swept  her  away, 
and  now  she  found  that  once  again  she  had  given 
her  gold  for  counters,  and  that  the  man  whom  she  had 
endowed  with  the  graces  of  strength  and  faithfulness 
was  a  moral  weakling,  false  and  faithless,  one  to  whom 
love  was  but  another  name  for  lust,  whose  only 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  247 

mistress  was  power — a  mistress  that  he  was  ready 
to  wade  to,  knee-deep  in  blood,  and  stepping  on  the 
bodies  of  all  who  crossed  his  path,  could  he  but  at 
last  attain  to  her. 

He  had  taken  refuge  in  the  north  with  that  hoary 
sinner,  his  great-uncle,  Bishop  of  Moray,  but  there  he 
came  to  blows  with  the  Bishop's  illegitimate  sons, 
slew  one,  and  thrust  the  others  out  of  doors.  A 
pirate's  life  then  seemed  to  be  the  life  for  him,  and 
with  this  in  view  he  sailed  to  the  Orkneys,  seized 
two  ships  belonging  to  an  innocent  merchant  from 
Bremen  who  was  trading  there,  dodged  the  Scottish 
vessels  that  came  to  take  him,  and  might  have  ended 
his  days  as  a  king  of  pirates  had  he  not  suffered  ship- 
wreck on  the  Norwegian  coast.  Then  did  the  hand  of 
Fate  close  upon  him.  He  was  cast  into  prison,  at 
Bergen  first,  finally  at  Dragsholm  in  Zealand,  and 
there  his  idle  body  and  idle  mind  conspired  together 
for  his  undoing.  What  menacing  phantoms  may  not 
have  crowded  round  the  mad  Earl  of  Bothwell  in  his 
prison  cell,  ere  Death  claimed  him  as  a  prisoner  for 
the  bar  of  that  Dread  Tribunal  where  he  who  feared  not 
man  may  have  cringed  at  last  in  dire  terror  and 
fearful  supplication  ? 

In  April  1568,  when  spring  was  breathing  to  all 
things  promises  of  resurrection  even  from  the  dead, 
Mary  escaped  from  Loch  Leven,  and  her  dead  hopes 
budded  once  again.  But  the  defeat  at  Langside 


248  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

was  what  her  revived  courage  had  to  meet.  Once 
again  she  had  to  ride  with  her  face  to  the  south — ride, 
ride  desperately,  into  the  Debateable  Land.  It  was 
a  ride  of  more  than  a  hundred  miles  that  she  took 
then,  and  for  sixty  of  it  she  rode  with  scarcely  a  break, 
getting,  hi  Lord  Herries's  country,  a  few  hours'  sleep 
on  the  clay  floor  of  a  peasant's  cottage,  and  refresh- 
ment of  some  sour  milk  and  oatmeal.  Then  on  again, 
ever  on,  till  the  Solway  was  in  sight,  with  its  long 
wet  sands  and  grey  water,  and,  on  the  other  side, 
England,  where  dwelt  her  trusty  cousin,  '  Good  Queen 
Bess,'  herself  a  woman  and  a  queen.  Surely  from 
her  she  might  expect  mercy.  Behind  her,  she  knew, 
was  the  fiery  death  that  was  meted  out  for  her  by 
those  righteous  men  who  professed  themselves  to 
be  followers  of  a  merciful  Christ. 

In  a  little  fishing -boat,  accompanied  by  some 
twenty  of  her  faithful  friends,  she  set  sail,  leaving 
the  Scottish  Border,  the  last  of  her  kingdom  that  her 
eyes  were  ever  to  light  on,  a  dun  blue  line,  fading 
astern. 

'  Would  that  I  had  died  at  Jedworth  ! '  .  .  . 

For  nineteen  long  years  from  then,  for  that  hapless 
sport  for  the  Fates  and  for  men,  plot  followed  plot,  as 
prison  followed  prison.  Always,  wherever  she  went, 
she  had  that  golden  key  that  unlocks  hearts.  Wher- 
ever she  went,  in  the  most  amazingly  stony  soil,  she 
seemed  to  sow  the  seed  and  raise  the  flower  of  love. 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  249 

The  love  and  devotion  of  her  Maries,  and  of  those  others 
whose  affection  had  always  been  truly  hers,  were  hers 
to  the  end.  Her  friends  schemed  for  her  escape ; 
her  enemies  schemed  for  her  undoing,  and  friends 
played  into  the  hands  of  enemies.  The  royal  mouse 
in  her  trap  was  not  for  a  moment  allowed  to  elude 
the  watchful  eyes  of  her  most  gracious  cousin  at  the 
English  Court.  One  has  seen  many  a  velvet-pawed 
cat  less  vindictive  and  more  humane.  At  Carlisle, 
her  first  prison,  Mary  made  request  to  her  royal 
kinswoman  that  she  would  graciously  remedy  some 
of  the  deficiences  of  her  wardrobe,  consequent  upon 
her  sudden  flight.  The  request,  coming  from  one 
who  was  herself  the  most  open-handedly  generous 
of  women,  was  surely  a  natural  one.  Sir  Francis 
Knollys,  Mary's  gaoler,  was  present  when  she  opened 
the  parcel  that  Elizabeth  sent  in  response  to  the 
request.  It  contained  two  torn  shifts,  two  small 
pieces  of  velvet,  and  two  pairs  of  shoes.  Mary's 
queenly  dignity  allowed  her  to  say  nothing,  and 
Sir  Francis — surely  '  black  affrontit '  at  his  royal 
mistress — could  only  mutter  that  the  maid  who  had 
been  entrusted  with  the  packing  of  the  parcel  must 
have  made  a  mistake.  The  captive  Queen  was  spared 
no  cruel  indignity  that  feminine  malice  could  invent. 
Elizabeth  had  a  '  heavy  hand,'  as  her  own  Warden, 
Sir  Robert  Carey,  complained. 

In  the  early  winter  of  1569,  the  Earls  of  Northumber- 


250  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

land  and  Westmoreland  headed  a  rising  in  the  north 
of  England  with  the  object  of  setting  Mary  free  and 
making  her  their  Queen.  Those  English  Catholic 
gentlemen  were  ready  to  risk  all  for  the  sake  of  a 
noble  lady  in  dire  distress.  To  them  the  captive 
Queen  was  the  symbol  of  their  Holy  Faith,  the  royal 
head  and  protector  of  their  cherished  religion.  Dis- 
mally did  their  gallant  attempt  fail.  They  risked  all, 
and  lost  all.  The  rebel  army  faded  away  as  wisps 
of  mist  fade  on  the  hills,  and  only  the  two  Earls, 
Anne,  Countess  of  Northumberland,  and  four  or  five 
others  were  left  together  at  last  to  flee  for  sanctuary 
across  the  Border.  It  was  bitter  November  weather, 
snow  deep  on  the  hills  and  moors,  sleet  stinging  their 
faces,  as  they  rode  through  the  rough  northern  country. 
On  the  English  side,  succour  they  found  none  from 
those  in  high  places  who  had  once  been  their  friends.  At 
Naworth  Castle,  where  Northumberland  pled  for  shelter 
for  his  Countess,  Leonard  Dacre,  who  had  so  recently 
run  most  vigorously  with  the  hare,  was  now  devotedly 
hunting  with  the  hounds,  and  threatened  his  former 
friends  with  pursuit  if  they  did  not  instantly  depart. 

'  No  rebels  shall  ever  be  sheltered  in  my  house,' 
said  this  worthy  man. 

From  the  country-people,  Catholics  all  in  their 
inmost  hearts,  they  met  with  much  kindness,  and 
when,  late  on  a  dark  and  stormy  night,  they  reached 
Liddesdale,  they  were  gallantly  welcomed. 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  251 

'  The  Lairdis  Jok 

All  with  him  takis.' 
»  •  •  • 

'  He  is  weil  kend,  John  of  the  Syde, 
A  greater  theif  did  never  ride/ 

wrote  Maitland  of  Lethington  some  years  previously. 
John  o'  the  Syde  received  Lord  and  Lady  Northumber- 
land, Lord  Westmoreland  stayed  with  '  the  Laird's 
Jock,'  while  the  rest  of  the  party  had  for  host  '  Black 
Ormiston,'  one  of  the  murderers  of  Darnley,  and  pro- 
bably the  very  blackest  of  BothwelFs  lambs.  As  far 
as  one  can  learn,  the  hospitality  of  those  somewhat 
notorious  Borderers  was  not  proof  against  the  tempta- 
tion of  gently  but  firmly  taking  for  themselves  the 
horses  and  superfluous  wardrobes  of  their  guests,  but, 
as  far  as  betrayal  was  concerned,  loyal  they  undoubt- 
edly were.  The  hunt  was  up,  yet,  through  the  dreary 
winter,  the  fugitives,  with  prices  on  their  heads, 
escaped  detection.  Westmoreland,  after  spending 
December  nights  and  days  in  caves  and  in  peat-holes, 
managed  to  reach  the  security  of  Fernihirst  Castle. 
The  Countess  of  Northumberland,  too  ill  to  be  removed 
when  pursuit  had  come  too  dangerously  near,  had 
been  left  by  her  unhappy  husband  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  the  Border  ruffians,  and  Black  Ormiston 
promptly  took  advantage  of  her  unprotectedness  to 
loot  everything  she  and  her  husband  had  left  to 
them — jewels,  clothes,  and  money — leaving  her  with 


252  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

scarcely  enough  to  cover  her  on  her  bracken  bed. 
But  to  her  came  generous  aid,  and  that  from  a  house 
that  had  long  been  at  daggers  drawn  with  the  house 
of  Percy.  The  Kers  of  Fernihirst  got  word  of  her 
plight,  and  Ker  rode  off  to  the  wilds  of  Liddesdale 
with  a  band  of  picked  men.  He  returned  in  triumph 
with  the  Countess  borne  on  a  litter,  and  from  the 
ladies  of  the  house  of  him  who  had  been  her  husband's 
enemy  the  Countess  received  the  tenderest  of  care 
and  of  sympathy.  From  Fernihirst  she  went  to  Home 
Castle,  where,  also,  she  was  an  honoured  guest. 
But  when  the  Earl  unwillingly  tore  himself  away 
from  his  wife,  he  parted  from  her  forever.  Shameful 
to  this  day  is  the  name  of  the  Armstrong  who  betrayed 
the  guest  who  trusted  him. 

Between  Canobie  and  Newcastleton  lay  Harelaw, 
the  peel  tower  of  Hector  Armstrong,  who,  in  days 
when  he  was  a  hunted  reiver,  and  Northumberland  a 
Warden  of  the  Marches,  had  once  been  shown  mercy 
by  the  Earl.  Thither  Northumberland  fled  for 
shelter,  but  the  blood-money  offered  by  Elizabeth 
proved  too  much  for  Hector,  and  he  sold  into  the 
hands  of  the  Regent  Moray  him  who  had  once  spared 
his  own  life.  Westmoreland,  and  an  angry  little 
company  of  Borderers,  Scots  and  English,  made  a 
gallant  attempt  at  a  rescue.  Near  Langholm  they 
overtook  Northumberland  and  his  escort,  and  slew 
Captain  John  Borthwick,  who  had  made  the  arrest, 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  253 

but  they  were  too  sorely  outnumbered  to  do  more 
than  leave  their  marks  on  some  of  the  captors,  and 
were  forced  to  retreat.  The  Earl  of  Northumberland, 
one  of  the  most  just,  upright,  and  merciful  men  that 
ever  captained  a  Warden's  barque  in  the  Borders' 
stormy  sea,  was,  after  a  yet  more  treacherous  betrayal, 
beheaded  in  the  prison  of  York  two  years  later,  and 
his  head  put  to  bleach  on  a  spike  of  the  Micklegate 
Bar.  His  name  is  now  unknown  to  the  Border  peasant, 
but  not  so  the  name  of  Hector  Armstrong.  To  this 
day  '  to  take  Hector's  cloak  '  is  the  Border  expression 
for  one  who  betrays  his  friend.  Shamed  was  every 
true  Borderer  that  an  Armstrong  should  so  have 
denied  the  name  of  his  clan  and  the  honour  of  the 
Border.  Constable,  an  English  spy,  reporting  the 
conversation  of  some  of  Mary's  partisans  in  Ferni- 
hirst's  house  at  Jedburgh,  said  that  '  Hector  of 
Har claw's  head  was  wished  to  have  been  eaten 
amongst  us  for  supper.' 

To  Mary,  in  prison,  news  of  the  failure  of  the 
Northern  Rising  must  have  been  a  bitter  blow  indeed. 
Her  eyes  were  red  and  swollen  with  weeping  for  many 
a  day  thereafter.  It  was,  truly,  dead  low  tide  for  the 
fortunes  of  the  Queen.  To  those  who  had  taken, 
or  were  supposed  to  have  taken,  an  active  part  in 
the  Rebellion,  Elizabeth  was  relentlessly,  mercilessly 
unsparing.  Mr.  Justice  Jeffreys  has  come  down  to 
our  own  times  as  a  monster  who  revelled  in  a  Bloody 


254  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Assize.  '  Good  Queen  Bess '  retains  the  spotless 
reputation  of  a  high-minded  virgin  queen,  but  there 
was  no  satisfying  her  in  her  demand  for  a  bloody 
vengeance  upon  all  those  who  had  dared  to  defy  her 
authority  and  to  put  their  swords  at  the  service  of  a 
queen  whose  peccancies  may  have  been  the  cause  of 
her  royal  cousin's  stringent  disapproval,  but  whose 
beauty  and  power  of  winning  the  devotion  of  men 
was  certainly  the  cause  of  her  malicious  hatred.  In 
Northumberland  Sir  George  Bowes  boasted  that  in  less 
than  a  fortnight  he  had  made  an  end  of  six  hundred 
rebels.  '  The  best  fruite  a  tree  can  bear  is  a  dead 
traytour,'  was  his  merry  jest.  In  all,  more  than  two 
thousand  persons  paid  with  their  lives  the  penalty  of 
their  devotion  to  a  hopeless  cause,  and  still  Queen 
Elizabeth  urged  her  representatives  on  to  further 
efforts. 

On  January  14th,  1570,  the  Regent  Moray,  who 
shares  with  his  contemporary,  Queen  Elizabeth,  the 
title  '  Good,'  was  assassinated.  Mary's  followers  on 
the  Border  did  not  let  the  grass  grow  under  their  feet. 
On  January  15th  Buccleuch,  Fernihirst,  Westmoreland, 
and  some  others  of  those  Englishmen  who  in  Scotland 
had  escaped  the  vengeance  of  their  queen,  rode  with 
two  thousand  horse  across  the  Border,  burning,  slaying, 
and  destroying,  and  returned  with  a  large  booty.  This 
was  too  much  for  Elizabeth.  Scotland,  too,  must 
be  punished  for  its  defiance.  An  army  under  Sussex 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  255 

was  despatched  three  months  later,  and  Scotland 
was  harried  as  far  north  as  Lanarkshire.  Buccleuch 
and  Fernihirst  were  the  chief  objects  of  her  vengeance 
— Ker  of  Cessford  made  his  peace  with  her  in  time. 
4  Burn  for  the  Queen  !  Plunder  for  yourselves  !  ' 
was  the  soldiers'  royal  commission.  With  Berwick 
for  starting-point,  the  army  marched  along  the 
Cheviot  line  into  Teviotdale,  dead  men  and  mouldering 
ruins  marking  the  route  they  took.  They  left,  wrote 
Lord  Hunsdon,  one  of  their  leaders,  '  neythar  castell, 
towne,  nor  tower  unburnt '  until  they  came  to  Jed- 
burgh.  For  a  breadth  of  a  couple  of  miles  on  either 
side  of  the  Teviot  the  destruction  was  carried  on 
by  one  party  of  troops,  while  another  detachment 
began  at  the  head  of  Coquet  and  burned  all  that  there 
was  to  burn  for  four  miles  on  either  side  of  Oxnam 
Water.  Near  Moss  Tower,  belonging  to  Buccleuch, 
were  some  caves,  and  there  the  country-folk  had 
hidden  all  their  worldly  goods,  and  themselves  sought 
safety.  To  burn  down  the  peel  tower  was  not,  how- 
ever, enough  to  satisfy  this  predatory  army,  and  the 
caves  were  sought  for  and  besieged.  '  Very  valyantly  ' 
was  the  siege  resisted  for  two  or  three  hours  by  a 
handful  of  defenders,  but  victory  had,  of  necessity, 
to  fall  at  last  to  the  English  army.  Crailing  Tower, 
where  Fernihirst's  mother  dwelt,  was  razed,  but  the 
castle  of  Fernihirst  they  could  not  succeed  in  blowing 
up,  and  had  to  content  themselves  with  wrecking  it 


256  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

as  far  as  possible  by  means  of  destructively  wielded 
crowbars  and  pickaxes.  As  they  drew  near  Hawick, 
where  they  expected  to  spend  the  night,  smoke  was 
before  them  instead  of  behind.  Sooner  than  that  the 
English  should  find  food  and  shelter  in  their  town, 
the  Hawick  people  had  torn  the  thatch  from  off  their 
houses,  piled  it  in  the  streets  and  fired  it,  and  its 
pungent  smell  and  the  blinding  clouds  of  its  black 
reek  were  what  greeted  the  punitive  army.  The 
townspeople  themselves  had  vanished  in  the  thick 
woods  up  amongst  the  hills,  so  also  had  all  goods  worth 
the  taking,  nor  was  any  provender  for  man  or  horse 
to  be  found.  It  was  an  angry  army  that  fetched 
water  to  quench  the  bonfire,  and  bivouacked  that 
night  with  smarting  eyes  on  '  suche  vyttells '  as 
remained  to  them.  Watchers  far  up  on  the  hills 
saw  a  fresh  blaze  when  morning  came. 

*  We  burnt  the  hole  towne,  savynge  one  house  of 
Dumlaneryk's,'  writes  Elizabeth's  trusty  officer  — 
Douglas  of  Drumlanrig  being  one  of  the  worldly- 
wise  opponents  of  Queen  Mary,  and  his  house,  the 
Tower  Inn,  still  remains  to  remind  us  of  his  wisdom. 

The  adjoining  villages  and  farmsteads  were  also 
destroyed  with  a  hearty  will,  and  Sussex,  Hunsdon, 
and  a  strong  party  of  horse  rode  up  the  valley  to 
Branxholm,  to  wreak  their  vengeance  on  the  bold 
Buccleuch. 

It  was  '  a  very  stronge  howse  and  well  sett,'  and 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  257 

'very  plesant  gardens  and  orchards  abowt  ytt,  and 
well  kept ;  but  all  destroyd,'  says  Hunsdon. 

Just  because  every  stone  of  his  home,  the  home  of 
his  ancestors,  was  dear  to  his  heart ;  just  because  the 
care  of  his  pleasant  gardens  and  his  fruit-trees  meant 
so  much  to  him,  Buccleuch  was  not  going  to  allow 
Branxholm  to  furnish  sport  for  the  ravaging  army  of  a 
vindictive  queen.  Himself  he  had  destroyed  those  fair 
policies,  where  primroses  and  periwinkles  and  wood 
anemones  proclaimed  the  spring ;  the  orchards  in  their 
radiance  of  pink  apple-blossom  and  snowy  pear,  and 
the  castle  itself  stood  a  blackened  ruin.  It  was  burned 
down  by  Buccleuch  '  as  cruelly  as  ourselves  could  have 
burned  it,'  wrote  Hunsdon.  So  have  men,  in  time  of 
war,  slain  their  wives  to  prevent  them  from  falling 
into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  Nothing  remained 
for  Sussex  and  Hunsdon  but  to  blow  up  the  walls 
that  still  stood,  and  to  go  on  with  their  work,  probably 
giving  the  people  of  Bowmont  Water  and  by  the  banks 
of  the  Kale  an  extra  share  of  attention  because  of 
the  deeds  of  the  men  of  Hawick  and  their  overlord. 
The  expedition  left  Berwick  on  a  Monday  evening 
and  returned  late  on  Saturday  night,  having  in  that 
time  destroyed  fifty  strong  castles  and  peels,  and  above 
three  hundred  towns,  villages,  and  farmsteads  —  a 
pleasant  week's  work,  and,  according  to  Hunsdon  in 
his  report,  a  '  most  honourable  revenge '  for  her 
Majesty  of  England. 


258  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

In  the  following  year,  1571,  when  the  kingdom  of 
Scotland  was  sadly  divided  against  itself,  a  herald 
made  a  proclamation  at  the  Cross  of  Jedburgh  in  the 
name  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  —  a  rash  proceeding, 
for  Jedburgh  had  given  Sussex  and  his  Englishmen  a 
kindly  welcome.  The  Provost  of  the  town  may  have 
had  honest  convictions  as  to  the  unrighteousness  of 
Mary's  cause  and  the  strong  claims  of  her  infant 
son,  who,  poor  babe,  was  not  then  exactly  in  a  position 
to  govern.  When  holding  a  Parliament  in  Stirling  that 
year,  those  wandering,  round  eyes  of  his  were  caught 
by  a  gap  in  the  roof.  '  There  is  a  hole  in  this  Parlia- 
ment,' said  the  five-year-old  ruler.  But  whatever 
were  the  Provost's  convictions  or  sentiments  of 
enthusiastic  loyalty  to  Mary  Stuart's  little  son,  he 
apparently  knew  neither  how  to  play  the  game,  nor 
owned  any  of  the  feelings  of  a  gentleman.  The 
herald  was  seized  by  many  rough  hands,  forced  to 
eat  his  proclamation,  and  was  then  unbreeched  and 
beaten  like  a  naughty  schoolboy,  with  a  bridle-strap 
wielded  by  the  Provost  himself.  Buccleuch,  Ferni- 
hirst,  and  their  followers  indignantly  flew  to  arms  to 
avenge  the  insult,  but  the  townspeople,  backed  by 
Ker  of  Cessford,  and  supported  by  troops  under 
Ruthven,  too  greatly  outnumbered  them,  and  they 
had  to  retreat,  not  without  losing  several  of  their 
men  as  prisoners.  The  good  people  of  Jedburgh  and 
their  Provost  were,  however,  not  allowed  to  go 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  259 

unpunished.  Fernihirst  hanged  ten  of  them,  as  a 
lesson  in  manners,  and  destroyed  with  fire  the  stock  of 
provisions  that  they  had  laid  up  for  the  winter. 

In  September  of  that  year  Buccleuch  and  Fernihirst, 
with  many  another  sturdy  Borderer,  took  part  in  the 
surprise  assault  on  Stirling,  when  the  Regent  Lennox 
met  his  death.  For  the  short  time  that  victory  was 
with  them  —  ere  the  reivers'  love  of  looting  had  lost 
for  them  a  supreme  chance — it  seemed  as  though  the 
long  struggle  were  about  to  be  ended,  and  that  the 
swords  that  were  to  free  their  Queen  and  place  her  on 
her  throne  were  once  more  to  be  those  of  her  Border 
lords. 

But  sixteen  weary  years  had  still  to  drag  past  the 
Queen  with  their  leaden  feet  before  she  won  her 
freedom. 

In  Scotland,  in  1586,  there  was  seen,  so  the  super- 
stitious alleged,  '  a  bloody  head  dancing  in  the  air,'  a 
gloomy  portent  of  the  death  of  the  Scottish  Queen. 

'  The  winding-sheet  had  passed  her  breast 
And  risen  round  her  throat.' 

Never  could  Mary  have  been  free  from  that  vision 
during  the  dreary  years  of  her  captivity,  for  never 
did  it  cease  to  be  the  desired  vision  of  her  sister  queen 
and  most  bitter  enemy.  In  that  year  Fernihirst  died. 
c  I  am  sorie  that  he  and  some  betters  had  not  been 
hanged,'  wrote  the  English  Warden  of  the  Middle 


260  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

March.  In  him  the  Queen  lost  one  of  the  trustiest 
of  her  friends  on  the  Border.  Buccleuch,  at  the 
age  of  twenty-five,  had  died  twelve  years  earlier, 
'depairtit  at  God's  plesour,'  as  the  inscription  at  Branx- 
holm  has  it.  James  Hepburn,  Earl  of  Bothwell,  died 
in  prison  in  April  1578,  but  his  nephew  and  successor, 
Francis  Stuart,  Lord  Bothwell,  was  to  Mary  a  true 
friend,  if  a  tactless  one.  He  was  the  illegitimate 
son  of  Lady  Janet  Hepburn,  BothwelFs  sister,  and 
James  v.  of  Scotland,  and  to  the  half-sister  who  had 
always  acted  as  his  guardian  he  showed  more  affec- 
tionate loyalty  than  her  own  son  and  Darnley's  ever 
displayed. 

On  a  February  day  in  1587  the  end  came.  The 
night  before,  the  Queen  was  given  warning  to  prepare 
next  morning  to  meet  with  the  Emperor  Death. 
'  Which  short  warning  she  took  very  patiently,' 
says  Sir  James  Melville.  Into  her  weeping  waiting- 
women  and  sad-faced  men  attendants  she  inspired 
some  of  the  splendid,  self-forgetful  courage  that  was 
ever  her  own  great  possession.  The  early  part  of  the 
night  she  spent  in  writing  letters — to  her  son,  to  the 
King  of  France,  and  to  others ;  in  making  her  will, 
and  in  doing  all  that  it  was  possible  for  her  to  do  for 
the  future  comfort  and  well-being  of  those  whom  she 
loved,  or  who  had  been  dependent  on  her.  None  were 
forgotten,  and  then  she  parcelled  what  money  she 
had  remaining  into  little  bags,  writing  the  owner's 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  261 

name  upon  each.  The  remainder  of  the  night  was 
spent  in  prayer  and  meditation.  She  asked  Mrs. 
Kennedy,  her  waiting-maid,  to  read  to  her,  and  chose 
the  story  of  the  Penitent  Thief. 

'  May  my  Saviour  have  mercy  on  me  and  re- 
member me,  and  have  mercy  on  me  as  He  had  on 
him  at  the  hour  of  his  death,'  she  said. 

The  story  of  that  dark  morning  is  one  that  we  must 
forget  if  we  are  ever  to  judge  with  dispassionate 
calmness  those  who  compassed  Mary  Stuart's  death. 
Her  magnificent  fortitude  and  courage,  her  exquisite 
unselfishness,  her  tender  desire  that  the  feelings  of 
those  who  cared  for  her  might  as  far  as  possible  be 
spared,  her  little  touch  of  humour  at  the  very  end, 
the  merciless  cruelty  of  those  who,  even  at  the  eleventh 
hour,  roughly  insulted  the  faith  in  which  she  died,— 
all  these  are  things  that  make  intemperate  partisans 
for  Queen  Mary,  and  equally  intemperate  haters  of  the 
queen  who  was  called  '  Good.' 

When,  after  some  hideous  delays,  the  axe  at  last 
had  fallen,  the  executioner  held  up  the  little  head, 
its  head-dress  of  flowing  lawn  torn  from  it.  And 
those  who  looked  on  the  piteous  sight  saw  that,  ere 
merciful  Death  had  come  to  give  her  rest,  cruel  Life 
had  pinched  and  aged  the  4  sweet  face,'  upon  which 
her  people  had  once  called  down  God's  blessing, 
and  made  her  radiant  fair  hair  white  as  that  of  an 
old  woman. 


262  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

'  I  have  immortal  longings  in  me,'  said  the  dying 
Cleopatra.  Another  great  queen  had  now  put  on 
immortality.  The  tragedy  of  Mary  Stuart  was  ended. 
A  little  shivering  pet  dog  that  had  cowered  against 
her  skirts  as  she  gallantly  met  her  doom,  was  the  last 
of  her  friends  to  be  thrust  away  from  her  by  hands 
as  remorseless  as  the  hands  of  Fate. 

Surely,  that  night,  sighing  spirits  must  have  held 
court  at  Holyrood.  The  winds  sobbed  and  wailed 
through  the  glens  and  cleughs  of  snow-clad  Teviotdale, 
the  flooded  rivers  moaned.  Did  there,  perchance, 
ride  out  from  the  grey  house  in  the  Backgate  of 
Jedburgh  a  slim,  girlish  figure  on  a  white  palfrey- 
Death's  pale  horse — making  the  wild  things  on  the 
Liddesdale  hills  fly  in  fear  as  horse  and  rider  galloped 
past,  across  the  dark  moors,  down  the  valley,  to 
Hermitage  ? 

In  Scotland  the  news  of  Mary's  death  raised  a 
storm  of  impotent  fury.  Impotent  it  was,  because, 
although  the  description  of  his  mother's  death,  by 
Mrs.  Kennedy,  caused  him  to  become  very  pensive 
for  almost  a  day  and  to  forgo  his  supper,  the  King 
had  at  heart  neither  love  for  a  mother  he  barely 
knew,  nor  the  desire  to  have  war  with  England.  The 
revenge  of  4  fire  and  swords '  at  first  threatened, 
flickered  out,  as  many  threats  are  apt  to  do,  in  the 
cooling  atmosphere  of  time. 

Francis  Stuart,  Lord  Bothwell,  who  declared  that 


MARY  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  263 

the  only  suitable  '  dule  weed  '  for  his  Queen  was  a 
coat  of  mail,  found  some  slight  comfort  by  straightway 
riding  into  England  and  making  a  bloody  raid.  Other 
reivers  did  the  same,  but  no  amount  of  slaying  and 
plundering  could  bring  back  the  Queen  to  her  own. 

The  dule  weed  still  is  worn  by  those  of  her  nation 
in  whose  hearts  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  forever  must 
find  a  sure  place.  At  a  higher  tribunal  than  this 
world  knows,  judgment  on  her  and  upon  those  who 
condemned  her  must  be  passed.  And  of  another 
woman  who  was  a  sinner  did  not  the  Judge  of  all  once 
say — '  Her  sins  which  are  many  are  forgiven,  for  she 
loved  much.' 


264       A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 


CHAPTER  IX 

BORDER   FEUDS 

They  shot  him  dead  at  the  Nine-Stane  Rig, 

Beside  the  Headless  Cross, 
And  they  left  him  lying  in  his  blood, 

Upon  the  moor  and  moss. 

They  dug  his  grave  but  a  bare  foot  deep, 

By  the  edge  of  the  Nine-Stane  burn, 
And  they  covered  him  o'er  wi'  the  heather  flower, 

The  moss  and  the  lady  fern. 

SURTEES. 

IT  was  inevitable,  during  the  long  years  when  Scotland 
was  kingless,  that  certain  families  should  attain  to 
great  power,  while  others  were  wiped  out  altogether. 
It  was  a  case  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest — fitness, 
unfortunately,  not  always  meaning  the  ascendancy 
of  the  knight  most  without  fear  and  without  reproach. 
It  would  have  been  well  for  Scotland  had  the  blood 
spilled  by  her  people  been  only  that  of  her  enemies, 
but  in  times  of  peace  the  great  families  kept  their 
hands  in  by  fighting  with  each  other.  There  were 
feuds  innumerable,  vendettas  as  cruelly  remorseless 
as  those  of  Corsican  or  Sicilian  peasant.  '  Blood 
washes  out  blood  '  was  an  axiom  as  closely  adhered 


BORDER  FEUDS  265 

to   on  the   Scottish   Border  as  it  has  ever  been  in 
Sicily. 

For  many  a  year  continual  bloodshed  came  from 
jealousies,  leading  to  hot  words  and  then  to  blows, 
and  from  that  unyielding  pride  with  the  possession 
of  which  other  nations  twitted  the  Scottish  people. 
A  French  proverb  in  the  sixteenth  century  was 
II  est  fier  comme  ung  Escossoys — '  He  is  as  proud 
as  a  Scot,' — and  one  way  in  which  the  Scots  showed 
their  pride  was  by  demanding  an  eye  for  an  eye,  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth.  According  to  the  delightfully 
simple  code  of  manners  of  the  times  there  were 
certain  insults  for  which  the  death  of  the  offender 
was  the  only  possible  atonement.  This  apology 
was  one  that  was  scarcely  likely  to  be  proffered  by 
the  offender  himself,  and  when  reparation  was  forced 
upon  him  it  was  a  point  of  honour  with  his  family 
and  relations  to  see  that  his  death  was  avenged.  The 
Highland  clans  were  punctilious  in  this  respect.  The 
clans  of  the  Border  were  not  one  whit  behind  them. 
4  Hawks  dinna  pyke  oot  hawks'  een  '  was  a  proverb 
that  only  held  good  among  the  reiving  families  when 
those  families  had  no  cause  of  quarrel  among  them- 
selves. The  '  plague  of  deadly  feud,'  wrote  Bishop 
Lesly,  '  though  a  general  calamity  through  the 
kingdom,  is  chiefly  proper  to  these  people.'  '  Naughty, 
evil,  unruly,  and  misdemeaned '  was  an  English 
Warden's  description  of  the  men  of  the  Marches  in 


266  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

1559,  and  in  no  way  did  they  show  their  unruliness 
more  plainly  than  in  their  total  lack  of  respect  for  all 
the  laws  of  the  land  in  a  feud  in  which  their  own  clan 
was  involved.  Each  clan  was  in  reality  a  large  family, 
and  if  a  member  of  that  family  suffered  injury,  it  was 
an  injury  that  touched  the  pride  of  every  one  of 
his  brethren.  The  existence  of  the  '  to-names '  that 
were  so  abundant  on  the  Border  show  how  real  a 
thing  their  clanship  was.  It  was  unnecessary  to  state 
that  a  man's  surname  was  Scott,  Elliot,  Armstrong, 
or  whatever  the  case  might  be,  when  Scotts,  Elliots, 
and  Armstrongs  were  members  of  a  large,  well- 
disciplined  regiment  of  light  horsemen,  owning  the 
same  surname  and  the  same  chief.  There  was  '  The 
Laird's  Jock,'  '  Jock  o'  the  Syde,'  '  Kinmont  Will,' 
4  Archie  Fire-the-Braes,'  '  Gennete's  Tom,'  4  Nebless 
Clemy,'  '  Red-neb  Hob,'  '  Ill-drowned  Geordie,'  '  Jock 
Half-lugs,' '  Will's  Archie,' '  Eddie  Great-legs,' '  Bessie's 
Andrew,'  '  Young  Band,'  c  Gray  Will,'  4  Gray  Will's 
Jim,'  '  Curst  Hob,'  '  Ill-will's  Sandy,'  c  Gibb's  Geordie's 
Francie,'  '  The  Lady's  Hob,'  '  Peggie's  Wattle,'  4  Gleed 
John,'  '  Black  Jock,'  and  many  a  score  of  others 
whose  surnames  probably  only  required  mention 
when  their  owners  stood  at  the  gallows'  foot. 

During  the  minority  of  James  the  Fifth,  a  blood- 
feud  of  handsome  proportions  was  that  which  raged 
between  the  Duke  of  Albany  and  his  partisans  and 
the  house  of  Home — during  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 


BORDER  FEUDS  267 

centuries  the  most  powerful  family  in  Berwickshire. 
The  Earl  of  Home  and  two  of  his  brothers  had  been 
treacherously  done  to  death  at  the  instigation  of  the 
Regent  Albany.  Sir  Anthony  D'Arcy,  Seigneur  de  la 
Bastie,  a  French  knight  of  such  personal  charms  that 
in  his  own  land  he  was  known  as  the  '  Seigneur  de  la 
Beaute,'  was  created  by  Albany  Governor  of  Lothian 
and  Warden  of  the  Eastern  Marches,  and  upon  him 
were  bestowed  the  castles  of  Dunbar  and  of  Home. 
To  the  Home  clan  it  must  have  been  intolerable  to 
feel  that  the  estates  and  castles  of  their  murdered 
chief  were  held  by  a  foreigner  whose  only  claim  to 
rule  in  the  Border  was  his  friendship  with  their 
arch-enemy.  They  had  no  chance  of  forgetting  what 
they  owed  to  Albany,  nor  of  healing  the  wounds  in 
their  family  pride  by  lack  of  memory,  for  there  are 
few  spots  on  the  Border  from  which  one  cannot  see 
Home  Castle,  a  lonely  watch-tower,  queening  it  over 
the  Merse.  The  Homes  bided  their  time.  On  a 
September  day  in  1517,  on  his  way  to  Dunbar  from 
holding  a  court  at  Kelso,  De  la  Bastie  had  to  ride  a 
fearful  race  with  his  pursuers.  A  few  miles  from 
Duns,  his  horse,  one  of  the  late  Earl's  best  steeds, 
much  encumbered  by  gorgeous  French  trappings, 
stumbled  and  fell.  A  '  little  foot  page  '  of  Home  of 
Wedderburn,  they  say,  who  had  joined  in  the  hunt 
without  permission  on  one  of  his  master's  horses, 
was  first  man  up,  but  two  of  the  Homes  were  close 


268  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

behind,  and  by  them  De  la  Bastie  was  slain.  His  head 
was  hacked  off,  and  '  because  his  Hair  was  long,  like 
Womens,  and  plat  on  a  Head-Lace,  David  Home  of 
Wedderburn  knit  it  on  his  Saddle-Bow.'  With  his 
bloody  trophy  dangling  by  him  Home  rode  to  Duns, 
there  to  have  it  stuck  up  on  a  pole  for  all  enemies  of 
the  house  of  Home  to  gloat  upon  until  such  time  as 
it  might  be  put  to  bleach  upon  the  battlements  of 
Home  Castle.  The  body  of  the  Seigneur  is  buried 
where  he  fell,  at  the  spot  that  is  known  as  4  Bawtie's 
Grave  '  to  this  day. 

'  The  leddies  o'  France  may  wail  and  mourn, 

May  wail  and  mourn  fu'  sair, 
For  the  bonny  Bawtie's  lang  brown  locks 
They  '11  ne'er  see  waving  mair.' 

The  feud  between  the  houses  of  Scott  and  Ker  was 
one  in  which  the  Homes  also  took  a  part.  It  is  hard 
to  say  how  the  quarrel  between  those  two  houses 
arose.  It  was 

'  An  endless,  fruitless  feud,  I  wot, 

With  vengeance  vowed  in  every  weather, 
Between  the  Cessfords  and  the  Scott, 
A  foolish  quarrel  long  begot.' 

In  1548,  when  the  aged  Lady  of  Buccleuch,  herself 
a  Ker,  was  burned  to  death  in  the  Tower  of  Catslack, 
Ker  of  Graden  and  others  of  the  Ker  clan  were  with 
Lord  Grey,  the  English  Warden,  aiding  him  in  his 
destructive  work.  Her  death  was  scarcely  likely 


HOME   CASTLE 


~ 


• 
d  -Lace,  David  II 

ie  to  D 

• 


ud  between  t* 
one  in  which  1 


. 
ar  ciai 

ij®  akatfc  was 


BORDER  FEUDS  269 

to  make  her  son  regard  his  enemies  with  any  of  the 
forgiving  feelings  of  Christian  charity.  The  Buccleuch 
of  that  day  was  a  man  of  whom  Satchells  says  that  he 

'  Durst  have  shewn  his  face 
To  him  that  was  as  stout  as  Hercules.' 

At  Flodden  and  at  Pinkie  he  fought,  and  his  affrays 
with  the  Kers  led  the  Queen-Dowager  to  imprison 
both  him  and  Ker  of  Cessford  in  Edinburgh  Castle. 

'  I  thought  best  to  put  them  both  in  the  Castle 
of  Edinburgh,'  she  wrote  .  .  .  '  and  not  to  let 
them  break  the  borders  for  their  evil  will  among 
themselves.' 

In  1526  the  constantly  smouldering  hatred  of  the 
Scotts  and  Kers  was  suddenly  sent  blazing  up  in 
flames  that  for  many  a  year  were  not  extinguished. 
King  James  the  Fifth  had  been  at  Jedburgh,  holding 
a  Justice  Court,  and  had  there  found  that  Justice  was 
a  virtue  which  on  the  Border  was  then  singularly 
conspicuous  by  its  absence.  By  means  of  bribery 
it  was  just  possible  for  the  King  to  have  some  of  his 
laws  administered,  but  even  bribery  failed  when 
judgment  had  to  be  passed  on  any  of  the  kin,  friends, 
or  servants  of  Douglas,  Earl  of  Angus.  The  bondage 
he  was  under  to  the  man  whom  his  widowed  mother 
had  married,  must  long  have  galled  the  boy-king, 
and  from  Jedburgh  he  wrote  secretly  to  Scott  of 
Buccleuch,  known  better  as  '  Wicked  Wat  of  Branx- 


270  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

holm,'  to  meet  him  at  Melrose  with  a  rescue  party, 
and  free  him  once  and  for  all  from  the  power  of  the 
Douglases.  The  clans  of  Home  and  of  Ker  had  acted 
as  escort  to  Angus  and  the  King  to  Melrose,  where 
they  slept,  and  in  the  grey  dawn  of  the  morning 
Lord  Home  and  the  Lairds  of  Cessford  and  of  Ferni- 
hirst  had  taken  leave  of  their  sovereign  and  ridden 
off,  when  James  had  visible  proof  that  Buccleuch  had 
received  his  letter.  Sir  Walter  Scott  had  raised  an 
army  of  something  between  six  hundred  and  one 
thousand  horse,  Scotts,  Elliots,  and  Armstrongs,  and 
advancing  over  the  brow  of  the  hill  that  lies  to  the 
south  above  Darnick,  the  astonished  Angus  now  saw 
this  company.  To  him,  with  Kers  and  Homes  away, 
remained  three  hundred  men,  and  instead  of  awaiting 
the  attack,  Angus  sent  forward  a  herald  to  inquire  the 
will  of  Buccleuch,  and  to  bid  him  begone.  Buccleuch, 
in  no  warlike  guise,  but  wearing  a  leathern  coat  and 
black  bonnet,  proudly  made  answer  that,  according 
to  Border  custom,  he  came  to  show  his  clan  to  the 
King,  and  that,  moreover,  he  knew  better  than  did 
Angus  what  were  the  royal  desires. 

4  Sir,'  then  said  Angus  to  the  King,  '  yon  is 
Buccleuch,  and  thieves  of  Annandale  with  him,  to 
unbeset  your  grace  from  the  gate.  I  avow  to  God, 
they  shall  either  fight  or  flee  ;  and  ye  shall  tarry  here 
on  this  knowe,  and  my  brother  George  with  you, 
with  any  other  company  ye  please ;  and  I  shall  pass 


BORDER  FEUDS  271 

and  put  yon  thieves  off  the  ground,  and  rid  the  gate 
unto  your  grace,  or  else  die  for  it.' 

The  little  battle  of  Darnick  was  a  fierce  one. 
Buccleuch  and  his  men  fought  on  foot,  and  how  it 
would  have  ended  who  can  say,  if  the  Homes  and 
Kers  had  not  got  word  of  the  fray  ere  they  had  ridden 
too  far.  Their  reinforcement  of  fourscore  men  turned 
the  day,  and  Buccleuch  and  his  army  had  to  flee,  with 
the  Kers  in  hot  pursuit.  At  the  foot  of  a  steep  path 
Ker  of  Cessford  stumbled  and  fell,  and  was  promptly 
slain  by  Elliot  of  Stobs,  a  follower  of  Buccleuch,  who 
is  scarcely  to  be  blamed  when  we  consider  the  fact  that 
eighty  of  Buccleuch's  clan  had  fallen  that  morning, 
and  that  the  chief  himself  was  wounded.  '  Turn 
Again  '  is  still  the  name  of  the  spot  on  the  Abbotsford 
estate  where 

(  Gallant  Cessford's  life-blood  dear 
Reeked  on  dark  Elliot's  Border  spear/ 

and  where  the  pursuit  was  stayed. 

The  blood  that  was  spilt  on  both  sides  that  day 
had  thereafter  to  be  atoned  for  with  a  vengeance  by 
Kers  and  by  Scotts.  Elliot,  the  actual  culprit,  was 
made  to  pay  the  penalty  for  his  rash  blow  by  being 
arraigned  in  Edinburgh  for  '  treasonably  coming 
against  his  sovereign  lord  the  king  in  proper  person,5 
and  for  4  common  theft  and  reset  of  theft/  and  was, 
of  course,  convicted  and  hanged.  Angus  could  do  no 


272  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

less  for  his  friends,  the  Kers.     The  Scotts  and  Kers 
hated  each  other   before    the   fight ;    after  it  their 
hatred  knew  no  bounds.     In  1530,  to  try  to  put  an 
end  to  the  constant  warfare  between  the  clans,  those 
in  high  places  tried  to  bring  their  affairs  to  a  permanent 
settlement  by  the  employment  of  peaceful  methods. 
Sir  Walter  Scott  was  a  widower,  and  it  was  suggested 
that  he  should  marry  Janet  Ker,  daughter  of  Andrew 
Ker  of  Fernihirst.     Moreover,  the  heads  of  the  clans 
of  Scott  and  Ker  had  to  pledge  themselves  to  perform 
a  pilgrimage  to  the  four  chief  places  of  devotion  in 
Scotland — Scone,    Dundee,    Paisley,   and    Melrose — 
there  to  pray  for  the  souls  of  those  who  had  fallen 
in  the  fight ;  while  Sir  Walter  Scott  was  to  appoint 
a  chaplain  '  to  say  a  mass  daily  whenever  Sir  Walter 
Ker  and  his  friends  might  fix  on '  for  the  space  of 
five  years,  that  Cessford  might  the  more  easily  pass 
through    Purgatory;    while   the   Kers   had   to   have 
daily  masses  said  for  three  years  for  the  souls  of  the 
slain  Scots  and  their  friends,  at  a  place  appointed 
by  Buccleuch.     In  spite  of  this  marriage,  the  cessation 
from  hostilities  was  a  very  transient  one,  and  proved 
that  without   shedding  of   blood  the    Borderer   did 
not  believe  in  honourable  justice  having  been  done. 
Twenty-six  years  after  Cessford  was  slain,  Sir  Walter 
Scott  of  Buccleuch,   as  he  walked  down  the  High 
Street  of  Edinburgh  one  October  evening,  was  set 
upon  by  a  party  of  the  Kers  and  their  friends,  and 


BORDER  FEUDS  273 

there  murdered.  Apparently  he  was  given  no  fair 
chance  of  defending  himself.  While  he  tried  to  come 
to  grips  with  John  Home  of  Cowdenknowes,  Home 
thrust  his  sword  through  his  body,  at  the  same  time 
calling  to  Ker  of  Cessford,  '  Strike,  traitor,  a  stroke 
for  thy  father's  sake  !  '  Home  then  cast  the  body 
of  the  gallant  old  chief  in  at  the  door  of  a  booth, 
saying,  '  Lie  there,  with  my  malison,  for  I  had  rather 
gang  by  thy  grave  than  thy  door.'  Two  servants 
of  Home's,  passing  later,  found  Buccleuch  not  yet 
dead,  stabbed  him  three  or  four  times  through  the 
body,  and  robbed  him  of  his  cloak  and  steel  cap. 
Such  tulzies  were  frequent  in  the  High  Street,  and  it 
was  an  easy  matter  for  Ker  and  his  fellow-assassins 
to  ride  off  to  the  Border  on  horses  provided  by  Pringle 
of  Torwoodlee.  The  servants  who  had  given  the 
last  murderous  thrusts  to  the  helpless  man  were  asked, 
as  they  carried  off  their  booty,  what  the  fray  had  been 
about.  '  There  was  ane  lad  fallen,'  they  said,  and 
went  their  way. 

The  Scotts  were  not  slow  in  showing  their  wrath. 
According  to  John  Knox,  whose  righteous  soul  was 
vexed  by  the  force  and  frequency  of  the  Border  chiefs' 
oaths,  Buccleuch  was  '  a  bloody  man,'  but,  if  so 
it  was,  he  was  a  hero  to  his  clan.  The  lives  of  even 
those  friends  of  the  Kers  who  had  had  no  hand  in  the 
matter  were  forfeit.  It  was  enough  for  the  Scotts 
that  a  man  was  a  friend,  a  kinsman,  or  a  servant  of 


274  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

the  house  of  Cessford.  Death  was  his  portion,  and 
destruction  that  of  his  worldly  goods.  The  Kers 
were  declared  rebels,  in  itself  a  sufficiently  severe 
punishment  for  their  crime,  but  the  innocent  suffered 
with  the  guilty,  and  '  none  of  them  dared,  from  fear 
of  their  lives,  to  come  to  kirk,  market,  nor  to  the 
governor  to  ask  a  remedy  from  him.'  Yet  though 
they  were  at  enmity  with  each  other,  to  Queen  and  to 
country  the  Scotts  and  Kers  were  leal  and  true. 
Not  long  after  the  battle  of  Pinkie,  where  he  was 
present  with  a  large  body  of  retainers,  Buccleuch 
and  the  Kers  entered  into  a  bond  to  fight  together 
against  their  '  auld  ennemies  of  England  '  unto  their 
lives'  end.  Yet  even  this  bond  was  no  drag  upon  the 
family  feud. 

Many  an  innocent  man  had  paid  for  the  deaths 
of  Ker  of  Cessford  and  Scott  of  Buccleuch  ere,  in 
1564,  an  attempt  was  again  made  by  certain  peace- 
makers to  stanch  this  ever-bleeding  family  feud  by 
means  of  acts  of  public  penitence  and  the  sound 
of  marriage-bells.  It  was  arranged  that  a  son  of 
Cessford  should  marry  a  sister  of  young  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  and  that  his  aunt  should  be  given  in  wedlock 
to  a  son  of  Ker  of  Faldonside.  Failing  these  marriages 
others  were  arranged,  but  none  of  them  came  off. 
Possibly  the  contracting  parties  may  have  insisted 
on  having  some  say  in  the  matter,  and  have  been 
unable  to  see  why  clan  warfare  should  be  carried  into 


BORDER  FEUDS  275 

family  life.  4  Blessed  are  the  peacemakers '  is  a 
beatitude  before  which  even  a  turbulent  Border 
spirit  may  have  bowed.  '  Blessed  are  the  match- 
makers '  was  quite  another  thing,  and  it  must  have 
been  a  little  risky  to  attempt  to  make  matches  in  the 
Border  in  those  reiving  days.  In  addition  to  the 
matrimonial  arrangements  it  was  further  ordained 
that  Sir  William  Ker  of  Cessford  must  appear  before 
the  assembled  congregation  at  a  forenoon  service  at 
St.  Giles',  and  there,  reverently,  upon  his  knees, 
ask  God's  forgiveness  for  the  murder  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott  of  Buccleuch.  Thereafter — a  much  harder  task 
— he  had  to  beg  for  pardon  from  young  Buccleuch, 
his  kinsmen  and  friends,  and  promise  4  in  the  name 
and  fear  of  God,  that  he  and  his  friends  should  truly 
keep  their  part  of  the  contract,  and  should  stand 
true  friends  to  Buccleuch  and  his  friends  in  all  time 
coming.' 

Whether  this  clause  in  the  pact  was  carried  out  to 
the  letter  or  not,  it  would  seem  that  Scotts  and  Kers 
of  the  succeeding  generation  were,  at  least,  no  longer 
openly  at  daggers  drawn.  Sir  Walter  Scott  of  Branx- 
holm,  of  Kinmont  Willie  fame,  married  in  1586  a 
daughter  of  Cessford,  sister  of  '  Habby  Ker,'  after- 
wards first  Earl  of  Roxburghe.  It  may  have  been 
through  Margaret  Ker  that  peace  came  at  last  to  the 
antagonistic  clans,  for  of  her  whom  she  called  her 
'  best  sester,'  her  sister,  Lady  Broughton,  in  1645 


276  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

wrote  '  sche  was  a  goud  Kerr,  if  ever  ther  wos 
any.' 

As  Wardens  of  the  Marches,  in  spite  of  their  band 
against  a  common  enemy,  Ker  and  Buccleuch  fre- 
quently came  into  collision,  and  every  now  and  again 
that  old  fire  of  family  enmity  would  give  signs  of 
blazing  up  afresh.  There  exists  in  the  State  Records 
a  heated  correspondence  between  the  brothers-in-law, 
when  Ker  had  obviously  not  '  played  the  game,'  and 
when  Buccleuch  was  a  prisoner  in  Berwick  without 
the  companionship  of  Ker,  who'se  freedom  was  due  to 
the  fact  that  he  held  different  ideas  of  honour  from 
those  of  the  bold  Buccleuch.  A  hostile  letter  from 
captivity  is  signed  '  Your  brother  in  lawe  Baclugh.' 
Ker's  angry  reply  is  signed  'Yr  br.  in  yr  owne 
termes  Robt.  Kerre.'  Buccleuch's  yet  more  in- 
dignant answer  ends  with  'Yr  br.  in  na  termes, 
Buclugh.' 

The  inevitable  consequence  of  this  paper  warfare 
was  a  challenge  to  a  duel,  sent  from  Ker  through  the 
Master  of  Orkney.  But  Sir  John  Carey,  Governor 
of  Berwick,  wisely  made  any  reply  on  the  part  of 
Buccleuch  impossible  by  retaining  the  bearer  of  the 
challenge  a  prisoner.  '  Bauclugh  is  his  mortall 
enemy,'  said  Carey,  writing  of  Ker  to  Cecil. 

But,  in  time,  at  last  even  those  sparks  ceased  to 
fly  upwards.  The  flame  of  enmity  died  out,  and  we 
live  in  days  when  Scotts  and  Kers  hunt  the  fox  on  the 


BORDER  FEUDS  277 

Border  in  amity  together,  and  the  old  blood-feud  has 
been  long  forgotten. 

While  the  feud  still  raged,  the  Scots  had  to  encounter 
yet  another  enemy  amongst  their  own  kin. 

In  the  autumn  of  1564  a  Scott  was  slain  by  some 
of  the  Elliot  clan,  and  for  many  a  day  thereafter  the 
Scotts  and  Elliots  were  constantly  at  each  other's 
throats.  So  furiously  was  the  vendetta  pursued  that 
the  Lords  of  Council  felt  it  necessary  to  take  stringent 
measures  for  its  suppression.  On  the  24th  of  October 
of  that  year  five  of  the  Scotts  and  Elliots  were  con- 
demned to  death,  and  three  of  them  were  beheaded 
that  very  night  by  the  flare  of  torches  on  the  Castle 
Hill.  The  Elliots  waited  till  the  spring  of  the  year, 
and  then  avenged  themselves  upon  those  who  had  led 
their  kinsmen  to  the  block  by  invading  the  Scott 
country,  burning  and  plundering,  and  slaying  several 
men.  The  Scotts  appealed  to  the  Court  to  be  per- 
mitted to  take  revenge,  and  took  it,  meantime,  without 
sanction.  Blow  was  fairly  given  for  blow.  A  Scott 
paid  with  his  life  for  an  Elliot's  death,  and  an  Elliot 
for  a  Scott's.  In  May  1585  ten  miles  of  Buccleuch's 
land  was  burned  and  spoiled  by  the  Elliots,  many 
men  were  slain,  and  several  women  and  children. 
What  wonder  that  about  that  time  Lord  Hunsdon 
wrote  of  the  gentlemen  of  the  English  side  of  the 
Border  that  they  were  '  so  affrayde  of  deadly  feedes, 
as  whensoever  their  ys  any  fraye  and  any  goods 


278  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

taken  away,  nott  one  that  will  ryse  to  helpe  his 
neighbour,  but  hee  whose  goods  ys  taken  awaye — 
thoughe  the  Scottes  come  by  their  doares  with  the 
spoyle.'  However,  even  the  Montagues  and  the 
Capulets  probably  arrived  at  peace  in  the  end,  and 
in  December  1601  the  English  Warden  complains 
that  '  the  Scotts  and  Elliots  have  again  been  spoiling 
the  Grahams.' 

Never,  apparently,  did  the  Scott  clan  entirely  have 
its  '  fill  o'  fechtinV  It  was  not  enough  for  them  to 
run  feuds  with  their  own  countrymen  and  to  be  at 
constant  enmity  with  the  English.  They  had,  in 
addition,  to  carry  on  a  lively  vendetta  with  the 
Charltons,  a  powerful  Tynedale  family.  In  1595,  in 
a  letter  to  Lord  Burghley,  Sir  John  Carey  explained 
the  reason  of  Buccleuch's  warlike  attitude.  It  would 
seem  that  '  long  synce,  in  a  warr  tyme,'  the  Tynedale 
men  had  raided  his  grandfather's  land,  taken  his 
grandfather  prisoner,  killed  several  of  his  retainers, 
and — most  dire  insult  of  all — '  they  took  awaye  his 
grandfather's  shworde  and  wold  never  lett  him  have 
ytt  synce.'  '  This,'  writes  Carey,  '  sayth  he,  is  the 
quarrell.' 

A  most  lively  quarrel  it  was,  too,  and  one  for  the 
sake  of  which  many  a  man  laid  down  his  life  through 
various  generations.  But  the  Scotts  fought  hi  vain. 
At  Hesleyside,  in  North  Tynedale,  Buccleuch's  good 
sword  still  remains. 


BORDER  FEUDS  279 

At  one  time,  on  the  English  side,  the  Charltons, 
Fenwicks,  Herons,  Shafftownes,  and  Milbornes  were  all 
at  feud,  while,  on  the  Scottish  side,  Elliots  and  Arm- 
strongs, Nixons,  Olivers,  Turnbulls,  and  Croziers  were 
at  each  other's  throats. 

Up  Tweedside  there  ran  for  many  a  year  a  feud 
that  claimed  much  good  blood  before  it  finally  smoul- 
dered out.  The  Tweedies  of  Drummelzier,  in  Peebles- 
shire,  were  a  gallant  family  of  Border  freebooters, 
ready  to  share  in  any  slaughter  that  was  going.  They 
were  a  prideful  clan  who,  in  the  reign  of  James  the 
Fifth,  rode  their  forays  all  mounted  on  well-matched 
white  horses,  a  predatory  regiment  of  Border  ancestors 
for  the  Scots  Greys. 

'  Wm.  Twedy  of  Drummelzeare  and  Adam  Twedy  of 
Dreva '  were  two  of  the  Borderers  who  helped  to  do 
Rizzio  to  death.  The  Veitches — once  the  De  Vaches 
of  Normandy — were  another  Peeblesshire  family  of 
dauntless  spirit,  and,  not  unnaturally,  representatives 
of  the  families  of  Tweedy  and  of  Veitch  came  to  blows. 
The  original  cause  of  quarrel  seems  to  have  been  a 
question  of  the  ownership  of  certain  lands.  The 
feud  had  for  some  time  run  its  course  when,  early 
one  June  morning,  there  was  an  accidental  encounter 
between  Veitch  of  Dawyck  and  the  laird  of  Drum- 
melzier in  one  of  the  haughs  by  the  Tweed.  Of 
course  they  fought.  Dawyck  proved  victor,  and 
Tweed  sang  her  '  siller  sang  }  that  morning  without 


280  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

disturbing  the  sleep  of  Drummelzier,  who  lay  near 
where  his  blood  had  reddened  the  snowy  blossom 
of  a  hawthorn  that  grew  down  by  the  river. 

In  1590  the  Veitches  held  the  honour  in  this  family 
quarrel.  The  head  of  the  clan,  known  as  the  *  Deil  of 
Dawyck,'  was  an  immensely  powerful  man,  and  had 
managed  to  daunton  even  such  turbulent  raiders  as 
the  Tweedies  of  Drummelzier. 

On  an  evil  day  for  him,  young  Patrick  Veitch, 
the  'Deil's'  son,  rode  alone  into  Peebles.  Young 
Tweedy  of  Drummelzier  saw  him,  and  quickly  passed 
the  word  to  five  other  men  of  his  own  clan — one  of 
them  one  of  Rizzio's  murderers — and  to  two  Crichtons 
and  a  Porteous,  his  friends.  There  were  nine  to  one, 
and  this  murder  band  of  nine  divided — one  division 
galloping  on  to  Neidpath  Castle,  the  other  remaining 
in  the  town  to  stalk  their  prey.  As  young  Dawyck 
rode  through  the  gorge  of  the  Tweed  at  Neidpath, 
on  his  homeward  way,  he  found  one  party  awaiting 
him,  and,  ere  he  could  meet  the  heavy  odds  in  gallant 
fight,  a  clatter  of  horses'  hoofs  behind  him  told  him 
that  it  was  not  battle,  but  murder  and  sudden  death 
that  was  his  lot.  Such  were  the  manners  of  the  time, 
and  it  is  surprising  to  learn  that  the  murderers  were 
imprisoned  in  the  Tolbooth  of  Edinburgh.  But 
Scott  of  Buccleuch  and  other  cautioners  appeared  on 
their  behalf,  and  they  were  not  long  in  regaining 
liberty.  Four  days  after  Patrick  Veitch  was  slain, 


BORDER  FEUDS  281 

Veitch  of  North  Synton  and  another  met  John  Tweedy, 
Tutor  of  Drummelzier,  in  the  High  Street  of  Edinburgh. 
No  time  was  lost  by  Synton,  and  the  Tutor  speedily 
lay  dead  in  the  kennel,  a  rapier  thrust  through  his 
heart.  Shortly  afterwards  the  clan  Tweedy  took 
their  revenge  for  this  murder.  The  husband  of 
Marie  Veitch  of  Dawyck,  Geddes  by  name,  had  been 
for  eight  days  in  Edinburgh,  and  during  that  time 
had  constantly  come  across  the  Tweedies,  who  showed 
him  openly  no  ill-will.  The  hapless  man  did  not  realise 
the  cruelty  of  a  blood-feud,  and  was  quite  unconscious 
of  the  fact  that  wherever  he  went  spies  followed  him, 
and  that  Death's  black  shadow  darkened  his  every 
footfall.  He  was  having  his  horse  shod  at  the  booth 
of  a  certain  *  Dand  Lindsay  '  in  the  Cowgate,  '  being 
altogidder  cairles  of  his  awne  suretie,'  when  nine 
of  his  family's  enemies  closed  round  him,  and  a  bullet 
through  his  back  laid  him  stark  and  dead.  His  widow's 
bitter  complaint  was  not  only  the  loss  of  her  own  man, 
but  because  the  Tweedies  '  had  ever  socht,'  and  sought 
still,  her  family's  c  utter  wrak  and  exterminioun.' 

'  The  deadly  feud  between  the  Veitches  and  the 
Tweedies  is  still  unreconciled,'  says  a  proclamation  of 
James  vi.  dated  March  1611,  and  steps  are  suggested  to 
compel '  the  principalls  of  either  surname '  to  bind  them- 
selves and  their  clans  to  be  at  peace  for  evermore. 

Where  honour  was  concerned,  even  one  branch  of 
the  Scotts  was  ready  to  wage  war  against  another 


282  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

until  blood  had  wiped  away  the  alleged  stain. 
A  Scott  of  Oakwood,  so  says  tradition,  eloped  with 
Grizel  Scott  of  Thirlestane.  Investigation  in  the 
cold  light  of  later  days  has  failed  to  prove  whether 
young  Scott  was  the  son  of  '  Auld  Wat '  or  not,  but 
the  fact  remains  that  on  October  22,  1616,  four 
gentlemen  of  the  name  of  Scott  were  summoned  at  the 
Kirk  of  the  Forest 4  to  hear  themselves  excommunicat 
for  the  horrible  slaughter  of  Wr.  Scott.' 

The  ballad  of  The  Dowie  Dens  of  Yarrow  is  respon- 
sible for  all  that  we  know  of  the  details  of  the  spilling 
of  blood  that  was  to  wash  out  supposed  dishonour. 
It  is  one  of  the  ballads  that  turn  the  murmur  of 
Yarrow's  hazel -brown  stream  into  a  dirge,  and  that 
help  to  make  the  spirit  that  haunts  its  heathery  hills 
and  its  woods  of  dark  firs  and  silvery  birches  one  of 
brooding  melancholy. 

According  to  the  ballad,  the  luckless  bridegroom, 
single-handed,  had  to  encounter  nine  Scotts  of  his 
bride's  family  on  '  the  dowie  houms  of  Yarrow,' 
and  there  was  treacherously  done  to  death.  Be  it 
fact,  or  be  it  fancy,  the  tale  is  one  that,  on  the  Border 
at  least,  must  possess  immortality,  for  who  does  not 
know  the  cry  of  the  bride — 

'  O  gentle  wind,  that  bloweth  south, 

From  where  my  love  repaireth, 
Convey  a  kiss  from  his  dear  mouth, 
And  tell  me  how  he  fareth  ! ' 


BORDER  FEUDS  283 

And  still  the  wail  of  the  heart-broken  widow  seems 
to  give  an  added  grief  to  the  wind  as  it  soughs  down 
the  Dowie  Dens  of  Yarrow — 

'  But  in  the  glen  strive  armed  men, 

They  've  wrought  me  dule  and  sorrow ; 
They've  slain — the  comeliest  knight  they've  slain, 
He  bleeding  lies  on  Yarrow.' 

The  ballad  of  the  Douglas  Tragedy  tells  yet  such 
another  tale. 

A  daughter  of  the  house  of  Douglas  was  carried 
away,  a  willing  bride,  by  a  wooer  who  asked  no  leave 
of  her  father,  Douglas  of  Blackhouse  in  Yarrow.  Her 
father  and  seven  brothers  rode  in  pursuit,  by  the  still 
easily  traceable  bridle  road  across  the  hills  between 
the  Yarrow  and  the  Tweed,  and  in  the  heathery  glen 
of  the  Douglas  Burn  the  lovers  were  overtaken.  A 
bloody  fight  ensued,  and  the  father  and  brothers 
all  were  slain  beside  the  old  grey  stones  that  probably 
mark  the  place  of  another  human  sacrifice.  The 
lovers  mounted  again  in  the  soft  moonlight,  leaving 
the  dead  lying  in  the  deep  glen  beside  the  murmuring 
Douglas  Burn. 

'  O  they  rade  on,  and  on  they  rade, 
And  a'  by  the  licht  o'  the  moon, 
Until  they  cam  to  yon  wan  water, 
And  there  they  lichted  doun. 

They  lichted  doun  to  tak  a  drink 

O'  the  spring  that  ran  sae  clear ; 
And  doun  the  stream  ran  his  gude  heart's  blood, 

And  sair  she  'gan  to  fear.' 


284  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Ere  morning  dawned  the  lovers  lay  dead. 

'  Lord  William  was  dead  lang  ere  midnight, 

Lady  Marg'ret  lang  ere  day — 
And  all  true  lovers  that  gang  thegither, 
May  they  have  mair  luck  than  they  ! ' 

Not  only  in  Teviotdale  and  Tweeddale,  and  in  the 
'  hopes '  of  Ettrick  and  Yarrow,  did  Scotland's  friends 
fall  before  the  swords  that  should  have  fought  only 
for  king  and  for  country.  In  the  Western  Marches, 
in  the  dales  of  Nith  and  Annan,  Maxwells  and  John- 
stons carried  on  a  feud  that  it  would  be  hard  to 
surpass  in  the  bloody  annals  of  any  land.  A  quarrel 
with  James  vi.'s  reigning  favourite,  the  Earl  of 
Arran,  in  1585,  placed  John,  seventh  Lord  Maxwell, 
on  the  wrong  side  of  his  sovereign's  gracious  favour. 
Maxwell  was  a  Romanist,  another  crime  in  the 
Protestant  monarch's  eyes,  and  the  Warden  of  the 
Western  Marches,  then  the  Laird  of  Johnston,  was 
sent  to  apprehend  one  for  whose  family  the  members 
of  his  own  house  had  never  cherished  any  friendly 
feeling.  Two  bands  of  mercenaries  were  sent  from 
Edinburgh  to  support  the  Warden,  but  Maxwell's 
half-brother  fell  on  those  troops  at  Crawfordmuir, 
practically  cut  them  to  pieces,  and  burned  Johnston's 
castle  of  Lochwood.  He  would  give  the  Lady  John- 
ston light  enough  to  '  set  on  her  hood,'  said  the 
incendiary.  Later  on,  Johnston  was  taken  prisoner, 
and  died  soon  afterwards  of  a  broken  heart,  so  it  is 


BORDER  FEUDS  285 

said.  Thus  was  the  feud  actively  inaugurated.  The 
whims  of  King  James,  who  bestowed  the  Wardenship 
on  a  Protestant  Johnston,  then  on  a  Papist  Maxwell, 
fanned  the  flames.  Maxwells  and  Johnstons  were 
mowed  down  in  their  turn,  and  the  hatred  steadily 
grew.  In  July  of  1593  there  came  to  Edinburgh 
*  certain  poor  women  of  the  south  country,  with 
fifteen  bloody  shirts,  to  compleen  to  the  king  that  their 
husbands,  sons,  and  servants  were  cruelly  murdered 
by  the  Laird  of  Johnston,  themselves  spoiled,  and 
nothing  left  them.'  In  the  same  year,  the  Laird 
of  Johnston  having  entirely  lost  the  favour  of  the 
king  by  his  partisanship  with  Bothwell,  Maxwell 
was  given  the  welcome  royal  commission  to  apprehend 
him  and  to  work  his  will  on  the  Johnston  clan — c  to 
root  out  Johnston  and  the  memorie  of  his  name  in 
these  boundis.'  This  was  not  to  be  brooked  by  the 
Laird  Johnston  of  that  day.  His  kinsman,  Buccleuch, 
was  summoned  to  help  him,  and  with  Buccleuch  came 
Elliots,  Armstrongs,  and  Graemes,  joyful  at  the  pros- 
pect of  a  good  fight.  At  Lochmaben  this  force  surprised 
and  well-nigh  annihilated  a  party  of  the  Maxwells, 
and  Lord  Maxwell  had  to  show  his  recently  found 
authority  by  invading  Annandale  with  a  force  of  two 
thousand  men,  and  proceeding  towards  Lochwood  in 
order  to  besiege  it.  With  Maxwell  rode  the  Lairds 
of  Drumlanrig,  Closeburn,  and  many  another  enemy 
of  the  Johnston  clan,  and  on  a  December  day  in  1593 


286  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

the  Laird  of  Johnston  and  forty  horsemen  came  in 
sight  of  this  host  and  drew  on  a  skirmish.  But 
five  hundred  Johnstons,  Scotts,  and  Elliots  lay  am- 
bushed, and  the  skirmish  was  the  signal  for  them  to 
fall  on.  The  fight  took  place  by  the  river  Dryfe, 
near  Lochmaben,  and  is  known  as  the  battle  of  Dryfe 
Sands,  and  there,  it  is  said,  seven  hundred  of  the 
Maxwells  and  their  men  were  slain.  Even  now,  in 
the  south  country,  a  '  Lockerbie  lick  '  is  the  name 
given  to  a  savage  slash  on  forehead  or  on  skull,  for 
so  it  was  that  many  a  man  met  his  death  in  Lockerbie 
or  on  Dryfe  Sands  that  day.  Lord  Maxwell  himself 
had  to  flee,  but  he  was  a  tall,  heavy,  elderly  man, 
greatly  encumbered  by  weighty  armour,  and  was 
overtaken.  His  pursuers  struck  him  from  his  horse, 
and  when  he,  grievously  wounded,  held  out  his  right 
hand  for  quarter,  Johnston  fiercely  shore  it  off  at  the 
wrist  and  not  only  bore  it  off  with  him  as  trophy, 
but  also  carried  with  him  the  bloody  head  of  his 
enemy.  An  even  uglier  tale  than  this,  fortunately 
less  well  authenticated,  is  one  of  how  when  Maxwell 
lay  a-dying  under  some  thorn-bushes,  Lady  Johnston 
came  to  the  field  to  see  how  the  day  had  gone  and  to 
minister  to  the  wounded  of  her  kin.  From  her  the 
dying  man  begged  for  aid,  but  apparently  the  poison 
of  the  blood-feud  ran  even  in  the  veins  of  the  women. 
In  her  hands  she  carried  the  heavy  keys  of  her  castle, 
and  with  them,  with  all  her  might,  she  smote  the 


BORDER  FEUDS  287 

helpless  supplicant,  dashing  his  brains  out.  Two 
thorns  still  mark  the  place  where  Maxwell  died — one 
can  but  hope  by  the  hand  of  a  man  and  not  by  that 
of  a  woman  to  whom  he  had  prayed  for  mercy.  For 
five  years  his  corpse  lay  unburied,  awaiting  the  time 
when  his  death  should  be  avenged,  but  in  February 
1598  the  King  and  Council  commanded  that  it  should 
be  laid  at  rest. 

Their  chief's  death  was  a  big  debt  for  the 
Maxwells  to  repay,  and  their  mode  of  repayment 
was  one  that  was  far  from  conforming  with  the 
rules  of  chivalry.  Each  side  had  struck  many  blows 
when,  in  1608,  Lord  Maxwell  sought  a  friendly  inter- 
view with  Sir  James  Johnston,  that  they  might  discuss 
the  causes  of  enmity  in  the  past  and  try  to  arrive 
at  a  friendly  settlement.  Each  of  the  principals 
took  one  servant  only  with  him,  but  with  Maxwell 
came  a  kinsman  of  his  own  name.  This  fellow,  while 
Lord  Maxwell  and  Sir  James  were  engaged  in  private 
conversation  some  little  distance  off,  fell  out,  as 
previously  arranged,  with  Johnston's  attendant,  and, 
drawing  his  '  dag,'  sent  a  shot  into  him.  Sir  James 
quickly  turned  round  to  see  what  had  happened,  and 
in  an  instant  fell  from  his  horse  with  two  bullets  from 
Lord  Maxwell's  pistol  in  his  back.  The  assassin  fled  to 
France,  where  he  remained  for  four  years,  but  on  his 
return  he  was  betrayed  by  his  kinsman,  Sinclair,  Earl 
of  Caithness,  and  was  beheaded  in  Edinburgh  in  1613. 


288  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

The  ballad  of  Maxwell's  Good-night  probably  gives 
us  more  tender  feelings  than  we  might  otherwise  have 
towards  a  man  who  was  undoubtedly  guilty  of  a 
foully  treacherous  murder. 

'  Adieu  the  lily  and  the  rose, 

The  primrose  fair  to  see  ; 
Adieu,  my  ladye,  and  only  joy  ! 

For  I  may  not  stay  with  thee. 
Though  I  have  slain  the  Lord  Johnstonc, 

What  care  I  for  their  feid  ? 
My  noble  mind  their  wrath  disdains — 

He  was  my  father's  deid. 
Both  night  and  day  I  laboured  oft 

Of  him  avenged  to  be ; 
But  now  I  've  got  what  lang  I  sought 

And  I  may  not  stay  with  thee.' 

Vengeance — vengeance — vengeance  !  that  was  ever 
the  cry  of  those  men  of  the  Border.  Never  did  they 
seem  to  consider  for  a  moment  the  possibility  of  leaving 
punishment  in  the  hands  of  a  God  who  said  '  Ven- 
geance is  mine — I  will  repay.' 

In  the  year  1511,  at  a  Wardens'  meeting,  Sir 
Robert  Ker  of  Fernihirst  was  slain  by  three  English- 
men. One  of  them  was  delivered  up  by  the  English 
Warden,  but  the  two  others  escaped.  One  wily  man, 
Heron  by  name,  succeeded  in  circulating  a  report 
that  he  had  died  of  the  plague,  had  a  mock  funeral, 
and  so  went  free,  but  young  '  Band  '  Ker  laid  upon 
two  of  his  clan  the  duty  of  finding  the  third  of  his 
father's  murderers,  and  of  bringing  him  to  Fernihirst, 


BORDER  FEUDS  289 

alive  or  dead.  The  assassin  had  made  his  way  to  the 
midland  counties,  and  there  lived  in  the  greatest 
secrecy  and  in  that  constant  fear  of  his  life  that  is 
the  horror  of  those  who  now  offend  members  of  the 
Camorra  or  the  Mafia.  With  as  much  cunning  and 
as  many  disguises  as  Camorrists  the  avengers  of  blood 
tracked  him  down,  found  him  at  last  in  bed,  and  made 
their  long  journey  back  through  England  bearing 
with  them,  as  ghastly  proof  that  their  work  had  been 
well  done,  the  head  of  the  murdered  man.  Eighty 
years  later  it  was  the  blood  of  those  who  had  spilt  the 
blood  of  their  clan  that  the  Kers  still  demanded. 
'  Habby  Ker  '  rode  into  Northumberland  to  avenge 
the  death  of  his  '  chief  man,'  who  had  been  taken 
red-handed  driving  stolen  sheep.  The  man  had  been 
tried,  confessed  he  was  '  worthy  to  dye,'  as  he  had 
done  five  murders  with  his  own  hand,  '  besides  so 
many  other  murders  and  stelthes  he  had  been  at, 
he  could  not  reckon  them,'  and  he  was  put  to  death. 
Three  days  later  Habby  sought  to  repay  this  debt  in  full. 
None  of  the  prisoners  taken  in  any  of  the  villages  that 
he  and  his  men  rode  through  were  Selbys,  Armourers, 
or  Ordes,  the  men  who  were  responsible  for  the  hanging 
of  three  days  before,  so  he  let  them  go.  One  party 
drove  off  some  cattle,  but  when  they  reached  their  chief 
with  this  booty  he  bade  them  drive  it  back  again.  '  It 
was  not  goods  but  blood  that  he  desired,'  he  said,  and 
he  vowed  that  he  would  be  revenged  ere  he  had  done. 


290  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

It  was  a  Lord  of  Session  in  Edinburgh,  Lord 
Lauriston,  who  was  a  party  in  one  of  the  famous 
Lowland  feuds,  and  who  put  into  words  his  own 
sentiments  and  those  of  his  fellow-Borderers  with 
regard  to  the  repayment  of  family  blood  debts : 

4  All  is  dishonorabell,'  quoth  Alexander  Napier, 
4  quhair  there  is  not  eie  for  eie  and  tuith  for  tuith.' 
In  1600  young  Napier  of  Merchiston  told  Scott  of 
Bowhill  that  he  had  lost  a  valuable  horse  from  the 
stables  of  his  house  of  Mure.  Whether  it  was  a 
conscience  not  wholly  free  from  guilt  that  made 
Scott  so  fiercely  resent  Napier's  complaint,  no  one 
knows,  but  Scott  fell  in  a  fury,  drew  his  sword,  and 
called  upon  Napier  to  defend  himself.  Napier  had 
meant  no  insult,  nor  had  he  any  wish  to  slay  or  to  be 
slain  by  his  hasty  friend,  and  he  therefore  showed  a 
clean  pair  of  heels.  Scott  went  in  pursuit,  and  all 
day  the  chase  went  on,  Scott  doggedly  pursuing 
Napier,  Napier  doing  what  he  could  to  avoid  a  meeting. 
In  the  evening,  at  a  part  of  the  road  so  narrow  that 
it  was  impossible  for  him  to  double,  Napier  was  run 
down,  and  had  to  fight  the  duel  that  had  been  forced 
upon  him. 

4  Quern  Deus  vult  perdere  prius  demented, '  and  it 
was  Scott,  not  Napier,  who  was  slain.  So  obviously 
was  the  thrust  given  in  self-defence  that  for  Napier 
there  was  no  question  of  trial  or  punishment,  save  in 
the  hearts  of  the  Scott  clan.  He  was,  apparently, 


BORDER  FEUDS  291 

tried  by  that  tribunal,  where  family  pride  sat  on  the 
Bench  and  blindfold  Justice  pronounced  the  sentence, 
and  that  sentence,  of  course,  was  death.  Several  of 
the  Scotts — amongst  them  three  of  Bowhill's  brothers 
— and  young  Crichton  of  Sanquhar,  waylaid  Napier 
near  his  house,  The  Wowmet,  some  miles  out  of 
Edinburgh,  and  murdered  him — righteously  executed 
him,  they  doubtless  thought.  There  was  no  sugges- 
tion of  hanging  for  them,  but,  as  rebels,  they  were 
4  put  to  the  horn  ' — i.e.  their  property  was  declared 
forfeit.  Their  chief,  Scott  of  Buccleuch,  took  up 
their  cause,  and  proposed  that  they  should  be  pardoned 
on  the  understanding  that  they  paid  the  Napiers 
£1000  as  compensation  for  the  murder  of  Archibald 
Napier.  Then  it  was  that  Alexander  Napier  pro- 
nounced his  dictum  that  all  was  dishonourable  save 
the  usual  Border  price  for  the  slaughter  of  a  friend. 
In  1626,  when  Alexander  Napier  became  Lord  Lauris- 
ton,  the  case  was  still  unsettled ;  but  in  1699  William 
Scott  of  Thirlestane  married  Margaret,  Baroness 
Napier  of  Merchiston,  and  the  Lord  Napier  and 
Ettrick  of  this  day  takes  descent  from  two  families 
that  once  so  thirsted  for  each  other's  blood. 

Many  a  weary  year  of  struggle  on  the  part  of  lawful 
authority  did  it  take  ere  the  land  was  rid  of  what 
King  Jamie  well  named  '  The  auld  and  detestable 
monster  of  deadly  feid.' 

James  vi.  made  it  his  business  to  bring  peace  to 


292  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

the  Borders  by  means  of  the  sword.  A  Commission 
of  five  Englishmen  and  five  Scots,  with  a  troop  of 
light  horse,  Sir  William  Cranston  as  their  captain, 
were  empowered  to  enforce  the  royal  decree  that 
murder,  robbery,  and  family  feud  must  come  to  an 
end ;  that  the  leopard  (his  spots  all  gone)  must  dwell 
with  the  lamb,  and  the  lion  eat  straw  like  the  ox.  It 
was  commanded  that  the  '  irone  yettis  '  of  those  peels 
possessed  by  members  of  broken  clans  should  be  beaten 
into  ploughshares  ;  that  the  members  of  these  clans 
should  be  compelled  to  take  to  peaceful  agricultural 
pursuits,  and  the  carrying  of  arms  was  strictly  pro- 
hibited. Mercilessly  did  Cranston  enforce  the  royal 
orders.  From  1605  until  1609,  and  even  longer, 
the  hanging  and  slaying  of  the  moss-troopers  went  on 
with  barelv  a  check.  Jethart  Justice  was  the  order 

•/ 

of  the  day.  There  was  never  a  case  of  '  Not  Proven.' 
4  When  in  doubt,  hang  the  prisoner,'  was  the  motto 
of  the  Crown's  representatives.  Peel  tower  after 
peel  tower  was  pulled  down,  and  many  a  reiver  had 
to  skulk  in  bogs  or  amongst  the  hills,  with  '  lurgg 
dogges  '  on  his  tracks.  Family  feuds  could  flourish 
no  longer  in  such  circumstances.  In  April  1606  alone 
there  were  forty  gallant  Borderers  hanged.  In  1607 
a  number  of  lairds — Scotts,  Rutherfurds,  Kers,  and 
Elliots — whose  necks  had  escaped  the  halter,  were 
driven  from  their  own  lands  and  sent  to  northern  and 
inland  towns.  In  1608  many  of  the  Maxwell  family 


BORDER  FEUDS  293 

met  with  a  like  fate.  South  of  the  Tay  they  were  no 
longer  allowed  to  make  for  themselves  homes.  In 
1616  the  king  proposed  that  '  the  most  notorious 
and  lewd  persons  '  on  the  Border  should  be  deported  to 
the  plantations  in  Virginia — and  what  might  America 
not  have  been  had  he  had  his  royal  pleasure  ?  But 
his  councillors  assured  him  that  the  step  was  unneces- 
sary, the  country  was  reduced  to  obedience  '  and 
quietness,'  and  it  would  be  well  to  let  sleeping  dogs  lie. 
Two  years  later,  however,  a  hundred  and  twenty 
'  broken  men '  from  the  Border  were  sent  to  fight  in 
the  Low  Countries  for  James's  son-in-law,  the  King  of 
Bohemia,  and  levies  of  Borderers  at  other  times 
sailed  across  the  North  Sea  to  come  back  to  their 
heathery  hills  and  their  silvery  rivers  nevermore. 

For  the  Graeme  clan  a  crueller  fate  was  chosen. 
They  had  always  been  a  turbulent  lot,  ready  to 
league  with  Scot  or  with  Englishman  when  any 
reiving  or  fighting  was  afield,  their  hand  against 
every  man.  Practically  the  whole  of  the  clan  were 
taken  prisoners,  their  houses  completely  destroyed, 
so  that  their  name  might  be  wiped  out  from  the  land, 
and,  while  they  were  imprisoned  in  a  pestilential 
gaol  at  Carlisle,  a  round  score  of  them  died.  Those 
who  were  fit  for  foreign  service  were  shipped  off  from 
Newcastle,  ignorant  of  the  fate  of  wives  and  children 
who  were  left  homeless  and  starving  in  the  wilds  of 
Eskdale.  Those  who  exiled  them  fondly  imagined 


294  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

that  they  were  rid  of  them  forever,  but  they  did  not 
count  on  the  dauntless  reiver  blood  that  was  ready 
to  fight  as  long  as  life  should  last.  By  some  means 
or  another — to  this  day  no  one  can  quite  tell  how — 
some  of  the  exiles  managed  to  find  their  way  back 
to  Scotland,  to  seek  in  Eskdale  the  wives  and  families 
they  had  left  in  destitution.  There  the  law  found 
them  out,  harried  them,  meted  out  to  them  the 
punishment  they  had  earned  for  daring  to  return. 
4  We  are  ready  to  go  to  the  mouth  of  the  cannon,  to 
the  block,  or  to  the  gibbet  to  show  our  loyalty,'  they 
had  already  pleaded.  Anything  they  were  willing 
to  do  if  they  might  know  that  those  whose  lives  were 
to  them  most  dear  were  provided  for.  But  old  offences, 
mostly  imaginary,  were  raked  up  against  them.  Two 
of  them  were  hanged  for  crimes  they  were  said  to  have 
committed  before  they  were  twelve  years  of  age.  At 
long  last  a  solution  was  found  for  the  disposal  of  those 
Graemes  who  still  remained  on  the  Border  to  baffle 
the  authorities.  The  clan  had  come  to  such  a  pass  that 
anything  different  from  their  present  destitution, 
their  present  condition  of  hunted  insecurity,  was 
welcome,  and  when  the  king  decided  that  the  Graemes 
should  be  transported  to  Ireland,  there  to  stock 
County  Roscommon,  they  submitted  to  his  decree. 
Like  many  other  emigrants  who  have  crossed  the 
seas  to  found  new  homes  and  fortunes,  it  was  a  woeful 
plight  in  which  those  Borderers  found  themselves 


BORDER  FEUDS  295 

when  they  reached  the  country  they  were  to  help 
to  populate.  There  was  no  food  for  them  there,  no 
shelter.  Sir  Ralph  Sidley,  the  gentleman  who  had 
undertaken  to  see  to  their  safe  and  comfortable  settle- 
ment, pocketed  the  money  provided  for  this  by  the 
Royal  Commissioners  and  left  them  to  shift  for  them- 
selves. What  little  money  they  had  of  their  own 
was  soon  spent.  Homeless  and  friendless,  they  were 
left  in  an  entirely  uncultivated  country  of  bogs  and 
thickets,  bracken  and  rushes,  with  only  starvation 
before  them.  What  wonder  that,  by  hook  and  by 
crook,  many  of  them  managed  to  struggle  home  to 
their  Border  hills,  there  only  to  meet  the  punishment 
that  was  apportioned  to  those  who  had  dared  to 
brave  the  royal  decrees  for  their  welfare  and  prosperity. 
Some  of  them  underwent  retransportation,  and  helped 
to  form  the  race  of  northern  Irishmen.  Others  faced 
the  gallows,  and  died  within  sight  of  the  hills  and  the 
sound  of  the  lilting  burns  of  home. 

Thus,  step  by  step,  were  peace  and  order  given  to 
the  Border  clans.  The  deadly  feuds  were  stamped 
out.  The  reivers'  power  was  maimed,  though  their 
spirit  was  never  destroyed.  Many  a  gallant  life  was 
ruthlessly  taken,  many  a  woman's  heart  was  broken, 
in  order  that  the  sapient  monarch  might  lay  a  sure 
foundation  for  the  paths  of  peace. 


296       A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 


CHAPTER  X 

BORDER   BATTLES 

Beside  yon  brigg  out  ower  yon  burn, 
Where  the  water  bickereth  bright  and  sheen, 

Shall  many  a  falling  courser  spurn, 
And  knights  shall  die  in  battle  keen. 

Prophecy  of  Thomas  the  Rhymer. 

FROM  the  days  of  the  Roman  occupation,  the  line  of 
Border  country  between  the  Solway  and  the  Tweed 
was  the  most  used  tourney  ground  in  Britain.  Many 
a  battle  fought  there  in  the  misty  olden  days  has 
gone  unrecorded,  many  a  gallant  skirmish  has  had  no 
Froissart  to  hand  on  its  story  to  future  generations. 
But  to  Froissart  himself  do  we  owe  the  tale  of  as 
stirring  a  fight  as  ever  was  fought — a  fight  for  which 
we  might  claim  a  place  in  the  Iliad  itself  without 
disturbing  the  well-won  sleep  of  the  immortals. 

In  ballad  form,  too,  we  of  Scotland  and  of  England 
proudly  own  the  magnificent  tale.  '  I  never  heard 
the  old  song  of  Percy  and  Douglas,'  wrote  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  4  that  I  found  not  my  heart  more  moved 
than  with  a  trumpet.1 

In   1388   the   condition   of   England   was   more   a 


BORDER  BATTLES  297 

subject  of  satisfaction  to  her  enemies  than  to  her 
friends.  Family  disputes  interfered  seriously  with 
her  government ;  France  threatened  an  invasion.  In 
the  northern  counties,  two  of  the  most  powerful  of 
the  Border  chiefs,  Percy  and  Neville,  were  at  daggers 
drawn. 

These  were  ideal  conditions  for  a  Scottish  raid  on 
a  large  scale,  and  the  Scots  did  not  lose  their  chance. 
Early  in  August  there  assembled  at  Jedburgh  a  host 
numbering  upwards  of  forty  thousand  men.  James, 
Earl  of  Douglas,  was  in  command,  and  with  him  rode 
such  noted  warriors  as  the  Earl  of  Moray,  the  Earl  of 
March,  Sir  James  Lindsay,  Sir  Patrick  Hepburn, 
Sir  Alexander  Ramsay,  Sir  John  Swinton,  and  the 
king's  second  son,  Robert,  Earl  of  Fife  and  Menteith. 
4  In  threescore  year  before  there  was  not  assembled 
together  such  a  number  of  good  men,5  writes  Froissart. 
And  a  gay  meeting,  according  to  him,  it  was.  '  They 
were  merry,  and  said  they  would  never  enter  again 
into  their  own  houses  till  they  had  been  in  England, 
and  done  such  deeds  there  that  it  should  be  spoken  of 
twenty  years  after.'  How  many  a  score  of  years  has 
passed  since  then,  and  left  their  proud  boast  unshaken? 
At  the  church  of  Southdean,  where  the  wooded 
beauties  of  the  Jed  valley  meet  the  fresh  hill  breezes 
that  blow  across  the  Carter  Fell  and  the  heathery 
moorland,  the  leaders  of  the  army  held  a  council 
meeting.  In  spite  of  the  most  careful  precautions, 


298  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

news  of  the  invasion  had  filtered  through  to  England, 
and  a  squire  who  knew  the  Border  country  well  was 
sent  to  Southdean  as  spy.  In  the  church  he  learned 
news  enough  to  set  all  the  English  side  ablaze  with 
apprehension,  but  he  was  not  fated  to  be  the  bearer 
of  the  fiery  cross.  He  had  tethered  his  horse  to  a 
tree  outside,  and  gone  in  along  with  many  another 
young  squire  without  exciting  suspicion.  But  an 
ownerless  horse  was  fair  game  for  the  Border  lads, 
and  when  the  spy,  rich  in  fateful  tidings,  sought  the 
steed  that  was  to  gallop  with  him  over  the  hills  and 
far  away,  he  found  himself  the  poorer  by  a  good  horse. 
His  tongue  was  tied.  He  dared  make  no  complaint. 
Booted  and  spurred,  and  with  many  a  weary  mile 
of  rough  road  to  tramp  ere  he  reached  the  county  of 
the  Percys,  he  was  hurrying  off  when  a  Scottish 
knight  espied  him.  Here,  indeed,  was  a  wonder ! — 
a  rider  whose  horse  had  been  '  lifted,'  and  who  yet 
made  no  attempt  to  recover  it.  No  Scot  could  this 
be — certainly  no  Border  Scot.  Two  knights  were 
speedily  on  his  tracks,  and  in  place  of  the  spy  handing 
on  priceless  information  to  his  countrymen,  he  was 
compelled  to  tell  all  that  he  knew  of  the  preparations 
and  intentions  of  the  English  forces  to  a  delighted 
audience  of  his  country's  enemies.  Acting  on  the 
information  thus  received,  the  Scottish  army  divided. 
The  main  body  marched  to  Carlisle,  while  the  other, 
under  the  command  of  Douglas,  crossed  the  Carter 


BORDER  BATTLES  299 

Fell,  passed  down  the  lonely  Rede  valley,  and  went 
on  to  Durham,  riding  c  a  great  pace,'  and  never  once 
stopping  to  plunder  or  to  destroy  as  they  went. 
Once  within  the  bishopric  of  Durham,  they  let  loose 
the  dogs  of  war.  They  plundered  and  they  slew, 
and  the  red  flames  and  black  smoke  that  marked  their 
line  of  march  heralded  their  approach  more  pictur- 
esquely than  the  tale  of  any  scout  could  have  done. 
As  far  as  Newcastle  the  smoke  rolled  on,  an  added 
irritant — were  one  required — to  the  wrath  of  the 
sons  of  the  Earl  of  Northumberland  who  there  awaited 
the  Scottish  army.  Ralph  Percy  and  his  brother 
Harry,  known  as  c  Hotspur '  to  Shakespeare  and  to 
all  posterity,  were  two  notably  fearless  and  gallant 
young  warriors,  and  for  the  three  days  during  which 
the  Scots  lay  outside  the  town,  the  Percys  were  more 
than  ready  to  take  their  share  in  the  fighting.  '  There 
were  many  proper  feats  of  arms  done  and  achieved  : 
there  was  fighting  hand  to  hand.'  And  James 
Douglas,  then  a  man  of  thirty,  who  had  come  with 
the  intention  of  humbling  the  pride  of  England, 
was  not  likely  to  be  behindhand  in  the  daily  fight. 
To  him  and  to  Hotspur,  a  lad  of  twenty-two,  came, 
on  the  last  day  of  the  siege,  the  joyous  chance  of 
measuring  lances.  Long  the  fight  lasted,  but  Harry 
Percy  was  unhorsed  at  last,  and,  when  he  was  rescued 
by  his  men,  his  lance  and  silken  pennon  were  left 
in  the  hands  of  Douglas.  More  even  than  lance 


300  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

and  pennon  he  lost,  for  a  pair  of  white  satin  gloves, 
gold  fringed,  and  embroidered  by  a  lady's  hand 
in  seed  pearls  with  the  white  lion  of  the  Percys, 
were  part  of  the  spoils  of  Douglas.  After  all,  it 
may  have  been  not  for  the  sake  of  a  pennon  alone, 
fit  cause  for  the  shedding  of  blood  though  that  might 
be,  but  for  the  love  of  the  fair  lady  who  gave  to  her 
knight  a  dainty  gage  d'amour,  that  many  a  man 
laid  down  his  life  on  a  moonlight  night  at  Otterburn. 

The  Douglas  shook  the  pennon  aloft.  '  Sir,'  he 
cried,  '  I  shall  bear  this  token  of  your  prowess  into 
Scotland,  and  shall  set  it  high  on  my  castle  of  Dalkeith, 
that  it  may  be  seen  far  off ! ' 

4  That  shalt  thou  never  ! '  cried  Percy. 

Then  answered  Douglas — '  Come  this  night  to  my 
lodging,  and  seek  for  your  pennon :  I  shall  set  it 
before  my  lodging,  and  see  if  ye  will  come  to  take 
it  away  ! ' 

That  night  the  Scots  kept  good  watch,  for  they 
measured  truly  the  weight  of  the  insult;  but  dawn 
came  without  assault,  and,  with  the  dawn,  they 
broke  camp  and  turned  their  faces  homewards. 
Passing  by  Ponteland,  they  took  and  burned  the  castle 
and  village,  and  marched  on,  up  the  Rede  valley, 
to  Otterburn. 

'  They  lighted  high  on  Otterbourne, 

Upon  the  bent  sae  brown ; 
They  lighted  high  on  Otterbourne, 
And  threw  their  pallions  down.' 


BORDER  BATTLES  301 

Next  morning  they  laid  siege  to  the  castle  of 
Otterburn,  but  a  weary  day's  hammering  at  its  thick 
walls  left  them  where  they  were.  One  day's  march 
more  would  take  them  to  their  own  side  of  the  Border, 
but  Douglas  was  too  good  a  sportsman  not  to  give 
his  foe  every  possible  chance.  The  other  Scottish 
lords  tried  to  persuade  him  to  go  on,  but  he  would 
not  listen  to  their  arguments.  They  must  stay  there 
three  or  four  days,  he  ordained,  to  '  repell  the  Percy's 
bragging,'  and  to  give  him  an  opportunity  of  winning 
back  his  gloves  and  pennon.  '  For  their  honour 
and  for  the  love  of  him,'  there  was  not  one  that  made 
demur.  They  threw  up  earthworks,  made  for  them- 
selves huts  of  boughs  and  c  great  herbes,'  drove 
their  looted  cattle  into  the  marshy  land,  and  placed 
their  carts  and  baggage  with  the  servants  in  charge 
at  the  entrance  of  a  marsh  near  the  Newcastle  road. 

It  was  late  in  the  evening  of  that  hot  August  day, 
and  the  Scots  were  resting  at  last,  some  of  them 
supping,  others  already  asleep,  when  Percy  came  to 
redeem  his  honour.  When  news  had  reached  New- 
castle that  Douglas  awaited  him  at  Otterburn,  Percy's 
eagerness  overcame  his  discretion. 

4  To  horse  !  to  horse  ! '  joyfully  he  cried,  '  for  by  the 
faith  that  I  owe  to  my  God,  and  to  my  lord  and  father, 
I  will  go  seek  for  my  pennon  and  dislodge  them  this 
same  night  1 ' 

Too  eager  to  await  reinforcements  of  ten  thousand 


302  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

men  under  the  Bishop  of  Durham,  he  set  off  with  an 
army  of  eight  thousand  foot-soldiers  and  six  hundred 
horsemen  and  rode  up  to  Otterburn  when  the  shadows 
had  fallen,  and  the  pewits  on  the  marshes  had  ceased 
their  disturbed  clamour  and  nestled  down  to  rest. 
Percy's  men  were  tired  with  their  thirty  miles'  march ; 
Douglas's  must  have  been  equally  worn  out  by  a 
long  day's  hard  fighting  in  the  blazing  August  sun. 
But  there  was  no  laggard  in  the  Scottish  ranks  when 
a  picket  galloped  into  the  camp  with  the  tidings 
that  the  English,  with  a  force  double  their  own, 
were  upon  them,  hidden  only  from  sight  by  the 
birchen  thickets.  Percy's  army  fell  first  upon  the 
servants  in  their  quarters  close  on  the  Newcastle 
road,  and  the  battle-cry  of  the  Northumberland 
family,  *  Espe*rance  !  Esperance  !  a  Percy  !  a  Percy  ! ' 
made  Douglas  and  his  officers  buckle  on  their  fighting 
gear  the  more  hastily.  With  armour  only  partly 
fastened,  Douglas  led  his  men,  while  Moray  fought 
helmetless.  '  A  Douglas !  a  Douglas !  '  came  the 
counter-cry,  in  time  to  rally  the  Scots,  who  were 
sorely  outnumbered  and  in  danger  of  being  beaten 
back  by  their  English  adversaries.  Douglas  and  Percy 
soon  found  each  other  in  the  throng,  and  around 
their  banners  did  the  fight  ever  wage  most  fiercely. 
'  Cowards  there  had  no  place,'  says  Froissart,  *  but 
hardiness  reigned  with  goodly  feats  of  arms.' 

In  the  face  of  a  portent  that  then  meant  so  much 


BORDER  BATTLES  303 

to  any  warrior,  the  Douglas  fought.     The  old  ballad 
tells  us  of  his  dream — 

'  I  have  dreamed  a  dreary  dream 

Beyond  the  Isle  of  Sky ; 
I  saw  a  dead  man  win  a  fight, 
And  I  think  that  man  was  I.' 

When  the  moon  came  up,  she  shone  on  ground 
already  slippery  with  blood  and  strewn  with  dead 
and  dying  men.  Soon,  as  though  unable  to  bear 
the  hideous  carnage  of  that  fair  summer  night,  she 
hid  behind  dark  clouds,  so  that  friends  could  no 
longer  be  discerned  from  foes.  For  a  short  time, 
until  moonlight  returned,  the  two  armies  had  a 
breathing  space,  and  when,  once  more,  they  fell  on, 
the  English  had  gained  fresh  vigour.  The  Scots 
could  not  but  feel  the  weight  of  numbers  that  pressed 
upon  them,  but  when  they  seemed  to  show  signs  of 
being  driven  back,  Douglas  seized  his  heavy  battle- 
axe  in  both  hands  and  hewed  and  cut  a  path  through 
the  throng,  like  a  fierce  autumn  gale  that  forces  its 
conquering  way  through  a  pine  forest,  leaving  a 
score  of  smitten  trees  to  mark  its  track.  '  A  hardy 
Hector,'  Froissart  calls  him,  and  surely  the  Iliad 
holds  no  tale  of  valour  by  which  that  of  Douglas  can 
be  surpassed.  It  was  his  last  fight.  Three  terrible 
wounds  in  his  body  were  draining  his  life's-blood, 
and  his  head  had  been  crushed  by  a  blow  from  an 
axe,  when  at  last  he  staggered  and  fell  to  the  ground. 


304  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

So  many  had  fallen  there  that  the  English  did  not 
recognise  the  Scottish  leader,  but  Ralph  Percy, 
who  fought  his  way  through  the  Scottish  ranks 
almost  single-handed,  was  less  fortunate.  Sorely 
wounded,  and  bleeding  so  terribly  that  he  could 
fight  no  more,  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  Sir  John 
Maxwell.  In  the  darkness  Maxwell  was  unable  to 
identify  his  captive,  and  demanded  his  name. 

1 1  am  Ralph  Percy,'  said  the  knight. 

4  Sir  Ralph,  rescue  or  no  rescue,  I  take  you  for  my 
prisoner  :  I  am  Maxwell,'  said  Sir  John. 

4 1  am  content,'  said  Percy ;  *  but  then  take  heed 
to  me,  for  I  am  sore  hurt ;  my  hose  and  greaves  are 
full  of  blood.' 

4  Maxwell,  thou  hast  well  won  thy  spurs,'  said  the 
Earl  of  Moray,  when  Maxwell  handed  over  his  prisoner 
that  his  wounds  might  be  tended. 

And  still  the  fight  went  on,  and  Scots  and  English 
fought  hand  to  hand,  each  to  the  death,  and  all  for 
the  sake  of  a  silken  pennon  and  a  lady's  glove. 

Under  the  gentle  light  of  the  moon  and  stars,  the  din 
of  battle  all  around  him,  James  Douglas — he  whom 
his  chronicler  remembered  as  the  little  fair  lad  at 
Dalkeith  Castle — lay  a-dying.  By  his  side  his  faith- 
ful friend,  Sir  Robert  Hart,  fifteen  wounds  in  his 
body,  lay  dead.  Near  him,  too,  was  the  corpse  of 
his.  squire  ;  while  his  chaplain,  William  Lundie  of 
North  Berwick,  '  a  tall  man  and  a  hardy,'  *  not  like  a 


BORDER  BATTLES  305 

priest,  but  a  valiant  man  at  arms,'  who  had  followed 
like  his  shadow  all  through  the  fight,  though  sorely 
wounded,  still  swung  his  good  axe  with  a  will  and 
kept  the  English  at  bay.  His  men  had  followed 
him  as  closely  as  they  could,  and  many  a  one  had 
fallen  near  him  for  the  sake  of  chivalry  and  the  love 
that  they  bore  to  the  Douglas.  Sir  John  Sinclair 
was  one  of  the  first  of  his  friends  to  reach  him,  and 
anxiously  asked  his  leader  how  he  did. 

'  Right  ill,  cousin,'  said  the  dying  man ;  '  but, 
thanked  be  God,  there  hath  been  but  few  of  mine 
ancestors  that  hath  died  in  their  beds.  But,  cousin, 
I  require  you  to  revenge  me,  for  my  heart  grows 
faint  and  I  know  I  am  dying.  Raise  up  my  banner 
which  lieth  on  the  ground,  and  show  my  state  neither 
to  friend  nor  foe,  for  if  mine  enemies  knew  it  they 
would  rejoice  and  our  friends  be  discomforted.' 

'My  wound  is  deep;  I  fain  would  sleep ; 
Take  thou  the  vanguard  of  the  three, 
And  hide  me  by  the  bracken  bush 
That  grows  on  yonder  lilye  lee. 

O  bury  me  by  the  bracken  bush 

Beneath  the  blooming  brier, 
Let  never  living  mortal  ken 

That  a  kindly  Scot  lies  here.' 

Nobly  did  Sir  John  Sinclair  and  the  Earl's  other 
friends  fulfil  his  behests.  They  covered  him  with  a 
cloak  ;  round  the  blood-stained  banner  they  rallied, 
with  revenge  to  strengthen  sword-arms  that  already 


306  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

had  been  those  of  heroes.  The  battle-cry  of  his  own 
gallant  name,  in  voices  that  heralded  victory,  must 
have  been  the  last  sound  that  smote  the  ear  of  Douglas, 
ere  grey  death  wrapped  her  mantle  round  him,  and 
his  darkened  eyes  could  no  longer  be  lightened  by 
the  gleam  of  moon  and  stars. 

One  thousand  and  forty  of  the  English  were  taken, 
or  left  dead  in  the  field  ere  the  waning  moonlight 
brought  the  battle  to  an  end.  One  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  forty-nine  were  taken  or  slain  in  the 
pursuit,  and  above  one  thousand  were  wounded. 

'The  moon  was  clear,  the  day  drew  near, 

The  spears  in  flinders  flew, 
But  mony  a  gallant  Englishman 
Ere  day  the  Scotsmen  slew.' 

When  the  English  broke  in  retreat  the  Scots 
followed  them,  wounded  lions,  seeking  their  prey. 
Night  and  the  small  numbers  of  the  pursuers  favoured 
the  routed  army,  and  ere  long  the  Scots  had  to  return. 
According  to  Froissart,  only  one  hundred  of  the  Scots 
were  slain,  and  two  hundred  made  prisoners.  The 
'  bent  sae  brown '  at  Otterburn  was  brown  no  longer 
when  the  sun  rose  next  day  on  trampled  bracken  and 
broken  silver  birches,  and  on  warriors  whose  fight 
was  ended. 

'  Then  one  the  morne  they  mayd  them  beeres 

Of  byrch  and  haysell  graye ; 
Many  a  wydowe  with  wepying  teyres 
Ther  makes  they  fette  awaye.' 


BORDER  BATTLES  307 

The  Scots  who  met  at  Southdean  had  made  good 
their  boast,  yet  was  it  a  paean  of  victory,  or  a  dirge 
that  was  in  their  hearts  as  once  again  they  crossed 
the  Carter  Bar  and  saw  the  three  blue  Eildons  looking 
down  on  Melrose  Abbey  ?  For  thither  they  carried 
the  body  of  the  victor  of  a  fight  never  to  be  forgotten 
by  them,  nor  by  any  other  who  holds  dear  the  records 
of  the  golden  deeds  of  chivalry. 

A  century  and  a  quarter  had  come  and  gone 
before  the  Border  hills  once  more  looked  down  upon 
a  fight  as  fierce  as  the  fight  at  Otterburn.  But  when 
the  sun  set  on  the  10th  of  September  1513  upon  the 
field  of  Flodden,  it  set  upon  more  dule  and  sorrow 
than  ever  the  victory  of  Douglas  over  Percy  had 
brought  to  the  sister  lands. 

Of  the  courage  of  James  iv.  there  had  never  been 
any  question.  But  he  who  was  ever  gallant  and  fear- 
less in  the  face  of  personal  danger  was  a  coward  in 
morals,  and  a  hopeless  weakling  where  women  were 
concerned.  When  Anne  of  Brittany,  Queen  of  France, 
dubbed  him  her  knight,  and  sent  him,  along  with  a 
gift  of  a  turquoise  ring,  a  prayer  to  step  three  feet 
and  strike  one  blow  on  English  ground,  the  weighty 
arguments  of  all  the  wise  men  in  his  kingdom  were 
not  likely  to  prevail  against  a  request  so  moving  to 
his  gallantry.  His  brother-in-law,  Henry  vni.,  in 
June  1513  invaded  France.  In  that  month,  while 
King  James  was  attending  evensong  at  Linlithgow, 


308  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

a  mysterious  figure  in  long  blue  coat  and  white  girdle, 
with  flowing  golden  hair,  stooped  over  him  and 
warned  him  to  avoid  war  and  to  shun  women.  But 
James,  perhaps  believing  that  his  ghostly  monitor 
was  inspired  more  by  earthly  than  by  heavenly 
things,  gave  no  heed  to  the  admonition.  Later  on, 
at  midnight,  at  the  Market  Cross  of  Edinburgh, 
roysterers  were  made  to  tremble  at  the  voice  of  a 
herald  summoning,  by  name,  the  King  and  all  his 
nobles  to  appear  before  Pluto  within  the  space  of 
forty  days.  Not  even  then  did  the  King  reconsider 
his  determination.  He  gave  '  thir  Novels '  *  but 
little  credence,'  and  in  July  of  that  year  he  proclaimed 
war  against  England.  Never,  in  Scotland,  did  a 
larger  or  a  finer  army  meet  than  the  one  that  assembled 
at  the  bidding  of  their  King  on  the  Borough  Muir  of 
Edinburgh  in  August  1513.  A  hundred  thousand 
fighting  men  were  there,  the  pick  of  the  Highlands 
and  Islands,  the  flower  of  the  Lowlands.  Scotts  and 
Kers,  Douglases  and  Homes  came  from  the  Border, 
nor  was  there  a  Border  town  that  did  not  send  the 
best  of  her  men  to  help  the  King  to  fight  and  win  a 
battle  yet  more  glorious  than  Bannockburn.  From 
Selkirk  a  band  of  one  hundred  marched  out,  their 
town-clerk  at  their  head.  Only  two  or  three  out  of 
the  hundred  ever  saw  the  braes  of  Yarrow  again. 
With  banners  afloat,  and  bagpipes  and  drums  pro- 
claiming aloud  the  majesty  of  war,  the  King  and  his 


BORDER  BATTLES  309 

splendid  army  marched  out  from  Edinburgh,  and  on 
across  the  Border.  The  castles  of  Norham,  Wark, 
Chillingham,  and  Etal  fell  before  them,  but  when 
Ford  was  taken,  after  a  five  days'  siege,  the  King 
fell  under  the  fascinations  of  Lady  Heron,  chatelaine 
of  the  castle,  and  days  that  should  have  been  spent 
in  martial  preparations  were  squandered  in  her 
company.  On  the  ridge  of  Flodden,  above  a  bend 
in  the  sluggish-flowing  Till,  the  Scottish  army  was 
encamped,  but,  while  the  King  happily  spent  his 
time  in  '  the  primrose  path  of  dalliance '  with  the 
treacherous  wife  of  one  of  his  enemies,  the  army's 
provisions  began  to  give  out.  With  them  ebbed  the 
warlike  spirit  of  the  troops.  Man  after  man  deserted. 
It  is  only  a  very  genuine  courage  that  can  stand  the 
test  of  long  days  of  inactive  waiting,  in  rainy  weather, 
for  the  attack  of  an  enemy  that  never  comes.  On 
August  30th  the  Earl  of  Surrey,  with  an  army  of 
twenty-six  thousand,  arrived  at  Durham,  and  there 
claimed  from  the  prior  the  sacred  banner  of  St. 
Cuthbert  that  brought  for  them  the  promise  of  victory. 
From  Alnwick,  on  September  4th,  Surrey  sent  James 
an  insolent  challenge  by  Rouge  Croix  herald,  offering 
to  fight  the  King  on  the  following  Friday,  and  accusing 
him  of  many  deeds  of  violence  and  rapine.  Honour 
forbade  that  the  challenge  should  not  be  met,  and, 
in  spite  of  the  defection  of  many  of  his  men,  it  seemed 
as  though  victory  for  the  Scottish  King  was  a  foregone 


310  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

conclusion.  The  English  army  had  been  on  short 
rations,  drinking  water  instead  of  beer,  and  were 
worn  out  with  long  marches  in  rainy  weather.  More- 
over, the  Scottish  army  held  an  impregnable  position, 
and  all  this  Surrey  recognised.  He  even  went  the 
length  of  sending  another  herald  to  demand  that  the 
armies  should  meet  in  fair  field,  and  that  his  men 
should  not  be  given  the  extra  disadvantage  of  having 
to  assault  heights  that  might  as  well  be  the  walls  of 
a  castle.  King  James  was  soldier  enough  to  scorn  this 
wonderfully  impertinent  demand.  To  grant  Surrey's 
request  would  not  have  been  chivalry  but  madness. 
Yet  it  was  a  kind  of  chivalrous  madness  that  wrought 
the  destruction  of  the  ill-starred  King.  Surrey's 
army  encamped  in  Wooler  Haugh,  but  on  the  after- 
noon of  September  6th  he  left  Wooler  and  marched 
full  seven  miles  eastward  to  Barmoor  Wood,  where 
his  forces  were  almost  entirely  concealed  from  the 
watchers  on  Flodden  Hill.  On  Friday,  September 
9th,  this  skilled  tactician  divided  his  army,  sending 
his  van  and  artillery  across  the  Till  by  the  old  bridge 
that  still  stands  at  Twizel,  and  himself  bringing  the 
rearguard  to  cross  at  Millford,  some  distance  farther 
up  the  river.  If  the  English  army  was  not  to  be 
starved  out  while  the  Scots  held  their  magnificent 
position  on  Flodden  Hill,  now  was  the  chance  for 
the  Scottish  army  to  take  them  at  a  dire  disadvantage, 
descend  on  them  when  their  forces  were  divided,  and, 


BORDER  BATTLES  311 

at  the  ford,  give  the  river  the  toll  of  men's  lives  that 
has  ever  been  her  boast.  On  his  knees  Borthwick, 
master  of  the  artillery,  begged  the  King  to  let  him 
bring  his  guns  to  bear  upon  the  column  down  at  the 
ford — so  easy  and  so  rightful  a  prey. 

'  I  shall  hang  thee,  quarter  thee,  and  draw  thee 
this  day,'  said  the  King,  '  if  thou  shoot  one  shot.  I 
am  determined  that  I  will  have  them  all  before  me 
on  a  plain  field,  and  see  then  what  they  can  do  to  me.' 

Angus  besought  him  to  charge,  and  was  met  by 
such  furious  words  of  insult  that  the  veteran  wrath- 
fully  quitted  the  field,  leaving  behind  him  two  sons 
and  two  hundred  of  his  name  to  die  for  King  and 
country.  While  James,  for  what  he  deemed  his 
honour's  sake  and  the  fair  fame  of  chivalry,  gave 
his  challenger  every  chance  to  equalise  matters  in 
the  coming  fight,  Surrey  quickly  took  those  chances, 
and  soon  the  King's  unhappy  councillors  saw  the 
English  army,  having  safely  crossed  the  river,  advanc- 
ing towards  the  hamlet  of  Branxton.  Once  encamped 
there,  there  was  nothing  left  for  the  Scottish  army 
but  starvation.  Even  James  could  not  suspect  that 
Surrey  would  be  capable  of  a  mad  magnanimity  such 
as  his  own,  and  there  therefore  remained  no  alter- 
native for  the  Scots  but  to  go  forward  to  the  attack. 
In  five  divisions  the  line  of  battle  was  formed,  the 
King  himself  commanding  the  centre.  About  four 
o'clock  on  that  September  afternoon,  in  dead  silence, 


312  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

and  barefoot  because  of  the  slippery  wetness  of  the 
short  grass  on  the  hill,  the  Scots  began  their  descent, 
the  smoke  of  the  smouldering  tents,  which  they  fired 
ere  they  left,  partially  screening  them  from  the 
enemy.  In  front  of  them,  beyond  the  English  host, 
they  could  see  the  woods  of  Roxburgh  and  of  Berwick- 
shire, the  Eildons  and  the  Black  Hill,  the  distant 
Lammermuirs,  even  the  heights  of  Ettrick  and  of 
Yarrow.  And  many  a  man  there  was  who  looked 
on  them  for  the  last  time ;  many  a  man  there  must 
have  been  who  knew  that  the  mad  courage  of  their 
gallant  King  was  leading  him  to  certain  death  in  the 
rushy  meadow  at  the  foot  of  Flodden  Hill. 

Straight  for  the  English  standard,  of  course,  made 
James ;  straight  for  Surrey,  4  an  old  crooked  carle  lying 
in  a  chariot,'  as  Pitscottie  describes  him.  '  Forward, 
banners ! '  was  the  order,  and  while  the  English 
guns  thundered  and  mowed  down  the  Scots  as  they 
advanced,  and  the  archers  slew  the  men  the  guns 
had  spared,  the  Scottish  guns,  badly  worked,  remained 
silent,  or  thundered  in  vain.  Soon  guns  gave  place 
to  spears  and  swords.  Hand  to  hand  they  fought, 
and  desperately  did  the  spearmen  of  the  Scottish 
centre  hold  their  ground. 

'  The  stubborn  spearmen  still  made  good 
Their  dark,  impenetrable  wood.' 

At  first  the  advantage  lay  with  the  Scots,  but  it 


BORDER  BATTLES  313 

was  not  with  them  for  long.  The  English  com- 
mander and  his  officers  kept  their  heads.  The 
Scottish  leaders  emulated  the  example  of  their  King 
and  fought  as  individuals,  not  as  commanders. 
Many  a  deed  of  dauntless  daring  was  done  that  day 
by  men  who  fought  a  battle  as  though  they  fought 
in  a  tourney,  who  threw  away  their  lives  for  the  sake 
of  loyalty  to  one  who  had  squandered  the  lives  of 
thousands  of  his  people  and  the  happiness  of  many 
more  for  a  mistaken  idea  of  chivalrous  gallantry. 
To  within  a  lance's  thrust  of  Surrey,  on  ground 
sodden  and  slippery  with  blood,  James  had  fought 
his  way  when  he  fell,  riddled  with  arrows,  his  left 
hand  dangling  helpless,  and  his  head  well-nigh  hewn 
off  by  an  English  billman.  A  dauntless  bodyguard 
of  the  flower  of  his  nobility  had  kept  by  him  as  he 
fought.  When  he  lay  dead,  they  kept  their  wardship 
still.  Till  darkness  fell,  and  the  battle  ended,  they 
fought  for  their  dead  King,  one  man  taking  the  place 
of  another  as  he  fell  beside  his  silent  monarch.  In 
vain  the  English  soldiers  tried  to  break  through  that 
barrier — 

'.  .  .  A  rampart  rose  before  them, 

Which  the  boldest  dared  not  scale ; 
Every  stone  a  Scottish  body, 
Every  step  a  corpse  in  mail.' 

Next  morning,  when  the  English  returned  to  the 
battlefield  in  search  of  plunder,  they  found  the  dead 


314  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

King  James  still  holding  court,  around  him  the  bodies 
of  twelve  earls,  fourteen  lords,  an  archbishop,  a  bishop, 
and  a  pair  of  abbots ;  while  the  Flowers  o*  the  Forest, 
and  many  another  flower  of  chivalry,  helped  to  keep 
their  King's  place  for  him  even  while  they  lay  stark 
and  dead. 

To  one  man  alone,  and  he  a  Scottish  Borderer,  is 
there  any  shame  attached  for  his  conduct  that  day. 
Many  a  Home  was  amongst  the  slain,  yet  it  is  said 
that  Lord  Home,  chief  of  the  clan,  held  aloof  from  the 
fight  when  his  own  people  were  in  direst  need,  and 
took  a  body  of  his  reivers  to  plunder  instead  of  to 
fight.  Pitscottie  has  it  that  to  the  remonstrance 
of  the  Earl  of  Huntly,  Home  answered,  *  He  does 
well  that  does  for  himself.  We  have  foughten  our 
vanguards  and  have  won  the  same,  therefore  let 
the  lave  do  their  part  as  well  as  we.'  It  was  a  piece 
of  treachery  never  to  be  forgotten,  and  even  now 
the  green  and  yellow  liveries  of  his  men  are  held  in 
execration  by  the  descendants  of  those  who  fell  at 
Flodden.  At  Selkirk,  still,  they  sing — 

'  Up  wi'  the  souters  o'  Selkirk 

An'  doun  wi'  the  Earl  o'  Home ; 
An'  up  wi'  ilka  braw  callant 

That  sews  the  single-soled  shoon  ! 
An'  up  wi'  the  lads  o'  the  Forest 

That  ne'er  to  the  Southron  wad  yield  ! 
But  deil  scoup  o'  Home  an'  his  menzie 1 
That  stude  sae  abiegh  on  the  field. 
1   Men. 


BORDER  BATTLES  315 

Fye  on  the  green  and  the  yellow, 

The  craw-hearted  loons  o'  the  Merse, 
But  here 's  to  the  souters  o'  Selkirk ! 

The  elshin,  the  lingle,  an'  birse. 
Then  up  wi'  the  souters  o'  Selkirk ! 

For  they  are  baith  trusty  an'  leal ; 
An'  up  wi'  the  lads  o'  the  Forest, 

An'  doun  wi'  the  Merse  to  the  Deil ! ' 


Long  after  King  James  fell  at  Flodden,  strange 
rumours  held  the  popular  ear.  It  was  believed  by 
many  an  honest  Scot  that  his  body  had  never  been 
found,  that  he  had  escaped  from  the  field,  and  on  his 
own  side  of  the  Border,  in  the  Merse,  was  in  hiding. 
It  took  years  to  cure  some  of  his  people  of  the  belief 
that  their  King  was  not  dead,  but  was  coming  back 
one  day,  like  King  Arthur,  to  fight  for  and  to  claim 
his  own.  Hard  it  would  have  been  for  them  to 
believe  what  seems  to  be  the  truth  of  the  tale.  For, 
according  to  Stowe  the  historian,  his  body  was  taken 
by  the  victors  to  London,  thence  to  the  monastery 
of  Sheen  in  Surrey,  where  it  rested  in  peace  until 
Edward  vi.  came  to  the  throne,  and  the  monastery 
was  dissolved.  At  Sheen,  later  on,  Stowe  says, 
'  I  have  been  showed  the  same  bodie,  so  lapped  in 
lead,  close  to  the  head  and  bodie,  throwne  into  a 
waste  room,  amongst  the  old  timber,  lead,  and  other 
rubbish.'  From  this  he  goes  on  to  relate  a  grisly 
tale  of  how  '  for  their  foolish  pleasure '  workmen 
hacked  the  head  from  off  the  royal  corpse,  and 


316  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

*  Lancelot  Young,  master  glazier  to  Queen  Elizabeth,' 
smelling  4  a  sweet  savour '  coming  from  the  head 
which  still  retained  its  auburn  hair  and  its  other 
appearances  of  living  humanity,  took  it  with  him  to 
his  house  in  Wood  Street,  London,  and  there  kept  it 
as  a  curiosity.  But  some  glimmer  of  grace  apparently 
came  to  Lancelot  Young,  for  he  gave  it  at  last  to  the 
sexton  of  St.  Michael's,  Wood  Street,  to  bury  '  amongst 
other  bones  taken  out  of  their  church.' 

So,  in  unfriendly  soil,  lie  the  ashes  of  King  James  the 
Fourth,  while  his  sword  and  dagger  remain  as  pleasant 
trophies  for  the  English  race  in  the  College  of  Arms  in 
London.  One  wonders  how  many  a  heart  he  broke, 
how  many  a  home  he  rendered  desolate.  In  Scotland, 
as  in  Rama,  there  was  a  voice  heard  of  lamentation  and 
weeping  and  great  mourning — 'Rachel  weeping  for 
her  children,  and  would  not  be  comforted,  because 
they  were  not.'  There  was  scarcely  a  family  in 
Scotland,  almost  certainly  no  noble  family,  which 
had  not  cause  to  wear  the  dule  weed  for  one  who  fell 
at  Flodden. 

'  I  Ve  heard  them  liltin'  at  the  ewe-milkin', 
Lassies  a-liltin'  before  the  dawn  of  day ; 
But  now  they  are  moanin'  on  ilka  green  loanin', 
The  Flowers  o'  the  Forest  are  a'  wede  away. 

Dule  and  wae  for  the  order  sent  our  lads  to  the  Border ' 
The  English,  for  ance,  by  guile  wan  the  day ; 

The  Flowers  o'  the  Forest,  that  foucht  aye  the  foremost, 
The  prime  o'  our  land,  are  cauld  in  the  clay ! ' 


BORDER  BATTLES  317 

The  punishment  meted  out  by  Henry  vin.  for  the 
Scots  who  had  declared  war  against  him,  was  far 
from  ending  on  the  field  of  battle.  A  regular  invasion 
of  Scotland  being  impossible,  Lord  Dacre,  Warden 
of  the  Marches,  was  commissioned  to  lay  waste  the 
Scottish  Border,  a  commission  which  he  fulfilled 
with  the  utmost  conscientiousness.  He  writes  that 
land  for  six  hundred  and  thirty  ploughs  4  lies  all 
and  everv  one  of  them  waste  now,  and  no  corn  sown 

•/ 

upon  none  of  the  said  grounds.'  The  best  of  the 
fighting  blood  in  Scotland  had  been  spilt  at  Flodden, 
and  there  were  few  left  to  withstand  the  English 
forces  that  plundered  and  burned  and  razed  at  their 
King's  command.  Yet  even  after  a  year  of  flagella- 
tion the  spirit  of  the  Borderers  who  remained  was 
not  beaten  out  of  them,  as  the  story  of  the  fight  at 
Hornshole  goes  to  prove. 

Under  Douglas  of  Drumlanrig  the  men  of  Hawick 
fought  at  Flodden,  and  barely  a  man  of  them  returned. 
Yet  when,  one  day,  tidings  of  the  advance  of  an  army 
of  authorised  marauders  from  England  reached  the 
town,  the  news  brought  no  panic  with  it.  An  army 
of  old  men  and  boys  was  all  that  could  be  mustered, 
but  that  army  was  mustered  promptly  and  marched 
down  Teviotside,  where,  by  Hornshole,  a  deep  pool 
in  the  river  glen,  they  came  upon  the  astonished 
English.  The  fathers  and  sons  of  those  who  fell  at 
Flodden  had  revenge  to  give  double  force  to  their 


318  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Border  zest  for  fighting,  and  the  English  were  ignomini- 
ously  routed.  Those  must  have  been  proud  mothers 
who  welcomed  back  their  boys  that  night,  bearing 
with  them  in  triumph  an  English  pennon — the  saltire 
or  upon  an  azure  field — which  the  4  Hawick  Gallants  ' 
still  proudly  bear  each  year  at  their  Common  Riding. 
And  if  women  there  were  whose  tears,  not  long  dried, 
fell  afresh  over  a  son  who  lay  dead,  '  dead  ere  his 
prime,'  in  the  silent  woods  by  the  river,  yet  they 
must  have  wept  without  bitterness,  for  there  is  nothing 
bitter  in  the  tears  that  are  shed  by  the  mothers  of 
heroes. 

In  the  years  that  followed  Flodden,  there  was  no 
cause  for  abatement  of  the  hatred  of  the  Scots  towards 
their  English  enemies.  During  the  years  1544-45 
Lord  Evers  and  Sir  Brian  Latoun,  with  the  royal 
commission,  did  all  that  lay  in  their  power  to  cut 
the  heart  out  of  the  Scottish  Border.  Her  beautiful 
abbeys  were  destroyed,  even  the  tombs  were  defaced  ; 
towns,  castles,  and  peels  were  sacked  and  burned  to 
the  ground.  Nothing  that  meant  pride  to  the  people 
of  Merse  and  Teviotdale  was  left.  The  land  looked 
as  though  it  had  been  swept  over  by  an  all-devouring 
forest  fire.  The  tower  of  Broomhouse,  near  Lauder, 
was  burned  by  Evers,  and  along  with  it  perished  its 
lady  and  all  her  family. 

Since  the  sack  of  Berwick  by  Edward  i.  there  had 
been  no  more  brutally  merciless  punitive  expedition. 


BORDER  BATTLES  819 

'They  lighted  on  the  banks  of  Tweed, 

And  blew  their  coals  sae  het, 
And  fired  the  Merse  and  Teviotdale, 
All  in  an  evening  late.' 

It  was  an  ill  day  for  Douglas,  Earl  of  Angus,  on 
which  he  learned  that  the  guns  of  the  English  army 
had  been  blattering  against  the  grey  walls  of  Melrose 
Abbey,  and  that  the  tombs  of  his  ancestors — even 
of  him  who  fell  at  Otterburn — had  been  desecrated 
and  defaced.  Already  on  the  head  of  Angus  King 
Henry  had  put  a  price  of  two  thousand  crowns,  and 
had  promised  to  Evers  and  Latoun  a  feudal  grant 
of  all  the  lands  in  Merse  and  Teviotdale  which  thev 

•I 

reduced  to  submission  by  means  of  fire  and  sword. 

4  If  they  come  to  take  seisin  in  my  lands,'  swore  Angus, 
'  I  shall  bear  them  witness  to  it,  and  perhaps  write  them 
an  instrument  with  sharp  pens  and  bloody  ink  !  ' 

Joining  forces  with  the  Regent  Arran,  he  marched 
towards  Jedburgh  in  February  1545  in  the  wake 
of  the  English  troops.  Up  the  steep  land  between 
Melrose  and  Jedburgh  went  the  forces  of  Evers 
and  Latoun,  and  on  Ancrum  Moor,  where  fir 
woods  now  crown  the  hill,  fearful  to  attempt  the 
fording  of  the  Teviot  with  a  foe  hot  on  their  heels, 
they  came  to  a  halt.  The  English  army  consisted 
of  some  three  thousand  foreign  mercenaries,  one 
thousand  five  hundred  English  Borderers,  and  seven 
hundred  assured  Scots,  amongst  them — low  be  it 


320  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

spoken — Ker  of  Cessford  and  Ker  of  Fernihirst,  and 
many  Armstrongs,  Turnbulls,  and  members  of  other 
broken  clans  who  fought  with  the  badge  of  the  red 
cross  of  St.  George  on  their  arms.  The  force  of  Angus 
was  one  thousand  strong,  and  was  reinforced  by 
Norman  Leslie,  Master  of  Rothes,  with  a  troop  of  three 
hundred  Fifemen.  While  Angus  and  Leslie  debated 
what  had  best  be  done,  Scott  of  Buccleuch  arrived 
from  Branxholm  with  a  sturdy  little  band  of  retainers. 
There  was  no  uncertain  sound  in  the  advice  given  by 
the  bold  Buccleuch.  Outnumbered  or  not  outnum- 
bered, they  had  to  beat  the  English.  That  was  a 
certainty.  And  in  order  to  do  this,  he  recommended 
that  the  horse  should  be  sent  to  the  rear,  while  the 
dismounted  men,  in  ambush,  awaited  the  result  of 
this  feint.  It  was  in  the  gloaming  of  a  February  day, 
and  when  the  English — the  beams  of  the  setting  sun 
in  their  eyes,  and  a  shrewd  northerly  wind  blowing 
the  smoke  from  their  own  camp-fires  back  in  their 
faces — saw  the  Scottish  horse  cantering  off,  they 
fancied  a  retreat,  and  in  disorderly  haste  charged 
downhill  in  pursuit.  They  realised  their  mistake 
when  it  was  too  late.  The  Scots,  in  a  compact  body, 
suddenly  appeared  from  behind  the  woods  and  thickets 
on  the  slope  of  Peniel  Heugh  and  fell  upon  them.  As 
the  word  to  charge  was  given,  there  arose  in  fear 
from  the  moss  close  by  a  heron  and  winged  its  way 
from  the  battlefield  to  a  safer  solitude. 


BORDER  BATTLES  821 

*  O  that  I  had  my  white  goss-hawk  here  !  '  cried 
Angus — '  we  should  all  yoke  at  once  ! ' 

From  the  first  the  English  were  at  the  mercy  of  the 
Scots.  With  sun  and  wind  against  them  they  were 
in  a  poor  case.  Each  Southron  rider  seemed  unable 
to  do  aught  but  ride,  a  helpless  prey,  on  to  the  point 
of  the  Scottish  spear  that  awaited  him.  When  the 
Scots  who  had  shamed  their  good  Border  names  by 
fighting  on  the  side  of  Scotland's  foes  saw  how  the 
day  was  going,  they  tore  the  red  crosses  from  their 
arms  and  joined  in  the  pursuit  and  subsequent 
plunder  of  the  English  troops.  There  was  little 
quarter  given  that  day.  '  Remember  Broomhouse  !  ' 
was  the  Scottish  battle-cry,  and  few  there  were  who 
did  not  have  cause  to  share  their  leader's  desire  that 
a  lasting  memorial  in  bloody  ink  should  be  written 
on  the  bodies  of  the  English  there.  One  thousand 
prisoners  were  taken,  and  twelve  guns ;  and  eight 
hundred  were  slain,  many  of  them  being  men  of  rank. 

Latoun  and  young  Evers  died  on  the  field,  but  the 
story  goes  that  Lord  Evers,  mortally  wounded  by 
Robert  Haig,1  was  taken  as  prisoner  by  him  to  his 
house  of  Bemersyde.  There,  in  a  few  days,  he  died, 
and  was  given  gentle  burial  in  the  sanctuary  that  he 
had  so  vilely  treated.  He  lies  beside  the  Douglases 
in  the  chancel  of  Melrose  Abbey. 

1  Haig  is  said,  for  this  service,  to  have  '  obtained  a  discharge  of  all  the 
duties  due  by  his  family  to  the  crown.' 


x 


322  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Not  only  men,  they  say,  fought  for  the  Scots  that  day. 
Women,  with  much  to  avenge,  slew  as  mercilessly  as 
did  the  men  of  their  race.  A  maiden  from  the  neigh- 
bouring village  of  Maxton  had  followed  the  Scottish 
troops  up  to  Ancrum  Moor  to  watch  how  her  soldier- 
lover  sped.  She  saw  him  fall,  and  seizing  a  sword  from 
one  whose  days  for  wielding  it  were  ended,  she  rushed 
into  the  fight  and  slew  several  Englishmen  before 
she  herself  was  killed.  In  a  wood,  up  on  the  ridge  of 
Ancrum  Moor,  which  still  bears  the  name  of  Lilliard's 
Edge,  the  maiden's  memory  is  immortalised,  and  the 
laws  of  physiology  outraged,  by  an  inscription  on  a 
stone  which  is  said  to  mark  her  grave — 

'  Fair  maiden  Lilliard  lies  under  this  stane, 
Little  was  her  stature,  but  muckle  is  her  fame ; 
Upon  the  English  louns  she  laid  mony  thumps, 
And  when  her  legs  were  cuttit  aff,  she  fought  upon  her  stumps.' 

The  slaughter  was  so  great  that  even  the  victorious 
Arran  was  moved  to  pity.  He  was  looking  at  the 
prostrate  body  of  Evers,  they  say,  with  Death's 
mark  upon  him,  when  he  sighed — 4  God  have  mercy 
on  him,  for  he  was  a  fell  cruel  man,  and  over  cruel. 
.  .  .  And,  welaway,  that  ever  such  slaughter  and 
bloodshed  should  be  among  Christian  men ! '  and 
thereat,  it  is  said,  the  tears  trickled  down  his 
cheeks. 

'  Highly  discontent '  was  King  Henry  at  the 
slaughter  and  bloodshed  of  that  day.  No  tears  had 


BORDER  BATTLES  323 

he  to  spare  for  the  fallen,  and  so  the  crusade  against 
the  Border  went  on.  In  1544  his  orders,  through 
his  Privy  Council  to  his  trusty  lieutenant,  the  Earl 
of  Hertford,  were  that  no  quarter  should  be  given, 
4  putting  man,  woman,  and  child  to  fire  and  sword, 
without  exception,  when  any  resistance  shall  be  made 
against  you.'  He  now  saw  no  reason  for  alteration 
in  his  orders,  and  the  hatred  between  the  two  nations, 
which,  for  over  two  centuries,  had  steadily  grown, 
now  grew  by  leaps  and  bounds. 

In  1545  the  King  sent  Hertford  across  the  Border 
with  a  huge  host  of  English,  Irish,  Germans,  French, 
Spanish,  Italians,  and  Greeks.  Grim  and  unrecount- 
able  were  the  atrocities  perpetrated  by  this  mongrel 
horde.  Little  wonder  that  the  Scots  became  like  wild 
beasts  robbed  of  their  young,  and  that  when  revenge 
was  to  be  had  they  stopped  short  of  no  fierce  cruelty 
in  its  fulfilment.  In  1548  the  Scottish  army  was 
reinforced  by  six  thousand  French  soldiers,  and  to 
one  of  them  we  owe  our  account  of  the  siege  of  Ferni- 
hirst.  The  Scots  besiegers  that  day  must  have 
regretted  that  King  Henry  was  dead  and  could  not 
hear  how  they  took  their  revenge.  For  three  or 
four  months  Fernihirst  Castle,  whose  grey  ruins 
overlook  the  Jed,  had  been  garrisoned  by  a  bastard 
lot  of  troops  under  a  commander  whose  lust  and 
cruelty  were  closely  imitated  by  the  men  under  his 
command.  Sir  John  Ker,  its  rightful  owner,  with  a 


324  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

strong  support  of  French  auxiliaries,  stormed  the 
outworks.  The  English  garrison  retreated  to  the 
keep,  but  the  Scots  undermined  its  thick  walls.  The 
commander  then  tried  to  treat  with  the  besiegers. 
4  Slaves  have  no  power  to  treat  with  their  masters ' 
was  the  reply  that  he  received.  Finally  the  wretched 
man  surrendered  unconditionally  to  a  French  officer, 
but  a  Borderer,  whose  wife  he  had  ravished,  was  close 
at  hand  and  struck  his  head  from  his  shoulders  with 
a  blow  that  made  it  fly  several  yards  away.  With 
shouts  of  joy  other  Borderers  rushed  at  the  head- 
less corpse  and  bathed  their  hands  in  its  blood,  and  a 
purgatory  and  a  hell  of  dread  and  of  pain  were  the 
lot  of  the  other  men  of  that  garrison. 

'  I  myself,'  says  Monsieur  Beauge",  the  French  officer 
to  whom  we  owe  this  account  of  how  the  men  of  the 
Borders  paid  their  dues,  '  sold  the  Scots  a  prisoner  for 
a  small  horse.  They  laid  him  on  the  ground,  galloped 
over  him  with  their  lances  in  rest,  wounding  him  as 
they  passed.  When  slam,  they  cut  his  body  in  pieces, 
and  bore  the  mangled  gobbets  in  triumph  on  the  points 
of  their  spears.  I  cannot  greatly  praise  the  Scots 
for  this  practice ;  but  the  truth  is,  the  English  tyran- 
nised over  the  Borders  in  a  most  barbarous  manner, 
and  I  think  it  was  but  fair  to  repay  them,  as  the 
saying  goes,  in  their  own  coin.' 

*  In  their  own  com,'  indeed,  it  might  be  called, 
yet  there  was  surely  no  brutality  meet  for  the  payment 


BORDER  BATTLES  825 

of  those  who  had  spared  no  dishonour  or  torture 
either  to  woman  or  to  little  child. 

Of  all  the  many  battles  that  were  fought  on 
Border  soil,  it  is  grievous  for  the  Scot  to  have  to 
own  that  at  Otterburn  and  Ancrum  Moor  alone  were 
the  Scottish  arms  victorious.  Yet  of  fights  and  of 
skirmishes  one  cannot  say  the  same,  and  the  last 
serious  tulzie  near  the  Cheviots  was  one  in  which 
the  Border  Scots  distinctly  held  the  honours.  A 
mere  brawl,  military  tacticians  of  this  day  may  call  it, 
but  it  was  a  brawl  not  without  national  importance. 
A  Wardens'  meeting  had  been  fixed  for  the  7th  July, 
1575,  and  the  appointed  place  of  meeting  was  the 
Redeswire.  The  ling  must  have  been  beginning  to 
purple  then,  the  broom  was  still  yellow,  and  there 
are  few  places  on  this  earth  more  pleasant  than  that 
windy  piece  of  moorland  that  has  the  Rede  valley 
down  below  it  to  the  south,  to  the  north  the  valley 
of  the  Jed,  with  Tweeddale  and  the  Eildons  beyond, 
and,  alongside  of  it,  the  Carter,  with  its  bracken  and 
heather  and  little  mountain  burns,  and  with  the  crow 
of  grouse  and  of  blackcock  to  tell  of  the  sporting  season 
to  come.  It  was  a  holiday  for  men  of  both  sides  of 
the  Border,  and  from  either  side  came  camp-followers 
of  sorts  who  erected  '  crames  '  with  refreshments  and 
goods  of  various  kinds,  much  as  are  still  to  be  found 
at  the  quickly  vanishing  Border  fairs.  At  first  Sir 
John  Foster,  the  English  Warden,  and  Sir  John 


326  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Carmichael,  Warden  of  the  opposite  March,  were  at 
one  in  all  the  questions  to  be  settled.  Then  came  up 
the  case  of  a  notorious  English  freebooter,  for  whose 
depredations  a  Scottish  complainer  demanded  com- 
pensation. He  had  fled  from  justice,  said  Foster, 
and  was  not  to  be  found.  Carmichael,  possibly  not 
without  reason,  suspected  Foster  in  this  statement  of 
compounding  a  felony,  and  told  him  to  '  play  fair.' 
Thereat  Foster,  without  hesitation,  retaliated  by 
making  some  uncomplimentary  reflections  on  the 
characters  of  Carmichael's  own  kith  and  kin.  This 
was  enough  for  his  followers,  the  men  of  Redesdale 
and  Tynedale.  4  To  ity  Tynedale ! '  they  shouted, 
and  let  fly  a  flight  of  arrows  among  the  Scots.  At 
first  things  went  badly  with  the  Scottish  Borderers, 
but  when  the  Englishmen  felt  sure  of  victory,  they 
thought  that  they  might  with  impunity  throw  them- 
selves upon  the  '  crames  '  of  the  traders,  wreck  them, 
and  despoil  them  of  their  goods.  They  had  reckoned 
without  their  host.  It  must  have  been  a  good  horse 
that  galloped  down  the  hills  to  Jedburgh  with  news 
of  the  fight,  for  ere  the  English  had  won  the  day,  from 
the  brae  towards  the  north  there  came  a  shout  of 
4  Jethart's  here  ! '  and  with  a  clatter  of  hoofs  the 
Provost  of  Jedburgh  and  a  sturdy  troop  of  citizens 
were  upon  them.  With  a  will  did  they  lay  about 
them,  and  the  skirmish  ended  in  a  complete  victory 
for  the  Scots.  Sir  John  Heron  was  slain,  and  Sir  John 


BORDER  BATTLES  327 

Foster  and  many  another  English  gentleman  taken 
prisoner. 

'  With  help  of  God  the  game  gaed  right, 
Frae  time  the  foremost  o'  them  fell ; 
Then  owre  the  knowe,  without  good-night, 
They  ran  with  many  a  shout  and  yell.' 

Thus  the  exultant  balladist,  whose  account  is  so 
detailed  and  so  accurate  that  we  cannot  doubt  but 
that  he  had  his  fair  share  of  the  fighting. 

It  would  almost  seem  as  though  those  who  died  in 
fair  fight  on  the  Border  must  require  a  Valhalla  for 
themselves,  so  many  there  are  who  have  fought  to 
the  death  amongst  these  Border  hills. 

Nearly  a  hundred  years  after  the  Raid  of  the 
Redeswire  had  infuriated  Queen  Elizabeth,  there 
marched  through  the  Border  with  his  troops  the 
solemn -faced  Lord  Protector,  come  to  quell  the 
loyalty  shown  by  the  Scots  towards  the  House  of 
Stuart.  At  Fala  Moss,  not  far  from  the  source  of 
the  Tweed,  one  of  Cromwell's  outposts,  sixteen  horses 
in  all,  was  surprised  and  taken  by  Porteous  of  Hawk- 
shaw  and  a  company  of  moss-troopers.  One  by  one 
the  reivers  slew  their  captives,  and  there,  by  the 
lonely  moss,  they  buried  the  doughty  psalm-singers 
from  the  English  shires.  Neidpath  Castle  was  taken 
by  the  Protector ;  so  also  was  Home  Castle.  They 
stabled  their  horses  in  the  church  of  Peebles.  '  The 
greatest  releiff  at  this  tyme,'  says  John  Nicoll,  a 


328  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

historian,  '  wes  by  sum  gentillmen  callit  moss-trouperis, 
quha,  haiffing  quyetlie  convenit  in  threttis  and 
fourteis,  did  cut  off  numberis  of  the  Englishes,  and 
seased  on  thair  pockettis  and  horssis.' 

The  Protector  was  dead  when  General  Monk,  in 
wintry  weather,  in  the  year  1659,  marched  through 
the  Scottish  Lowlands  on  his  way  to  England  to 
restore  a  monarchy.  While  at  Coldstream  he  recruited, 
and  the  men  whom  he  drew  to  his  colours  then  were 
the  ancestors  of  the  regiment  that  is  still  known  as 
the  Coldstream  Guards.  At  Oudenarde,  at  Waterloo, 
at  Inkerman,  at  Tel-el-kebir,  and  in  a  round  dozen 
of  other  fierce  battles  our  Coldstream  Guards  have 
fought.  At  Blenheim  and  Waterloo  and  Balaclava, 
and  at  many  another  place,  the  Scots  Greys  have  up- 
held the  honour  of  their  race.  The  King's  Own 
Scottish  Borderers  have  graves  in  Egypt  and  Afghan- 
istan and  South  Africa,  and  the  Border  Regiment  has 
well  earned  the  laurel  wreath  that  is  a  part  of  its 
badge.  As  defenders  of  the  honour  of  Britain, 
Border  Scots  have  not  done  ill. 

Our  enmity  is  forgotten  now ;  only  by  a  small  and 
intellectually  provincial  section  is  hatred  to  the 
English  race  still  fostered.  English  and  Scots  now 
fight  together,  die  together,  for  the  honour  of  their 
country.  Together  they  are  buried  in  lands  far 
across  the  sea.  The  gods  be  thanked  that  the  Mother- 
land of  Britain  is  now  meant,  and  not  England  or 


BORDER  BATTLES  329 

Scotland  alone,  when  we  read  on  the  memorial  tablet 
to  some  brave  lad  whose  death  in  a  distant  country 
is  chronicled  in  the  little  church  of  the  place  which 
his  people  have  ruled  for  generations,  '  Duke  et 
decorum  est  pro  patria  mori.' 


330       A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  COVENANTERS 

.  .  .  Clear  uprose  the  plaintive  moorland  psalm, 
Heard  high  above  the  plover's  wailing  cry, 
From  simple  hearts  in  whom  the  spirit  strong 
Of  hills  was  consecrate  by  heavenly  grace, 
And  firmly  nerv'd  to  meet,  whene'er  it  came, 
In  His  own  time,  the  call  to  martyrdom. 

SHAIRP. 

THE  race  of  the  reivers  may  not  have  been  noted  for 
its  natural  piety,  yet  even  after  it  had  become  a  bad 
thing  for  place  and  for  pocket  for  a  man  to  be  a  reputed 
Papist,  the  Borderers  clung  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
religion.  Once,  however,  that  they  had  exchanged 
priests  for  presbyters,  they  were  found  equally  staunch. 
Natural  obstinacy  and  a  deep-rooted  objection  to 
giving  up  any  possession  without  first  having  a  fight 
for  it,  may,  perhaps,  with  some  of  them,  have  had 
as  much  to  do  with  the  matter  as  had  a  love  for  the 
Presbyterian  form  of  worship.  The  Borderer  would 
give,  and  give  generously,  on  his  own  initiative, 
but  he  held  on  to  that  which  he  owned,  and  would 
defy  any  power  on  earth  that  tried  by  force  of  arms 
to  wrest  it  from  him.  Even  now,  it  is  as  hard  to 


THE  COVENANTERS  831 

steal  a  horse  from  a  Borderer  of  the  old  breed  as  it 
is  to  shake  his  inherited  political  convictions,  and 
his  traditionary  beliefs  in  what  his  family  and  ances- 
tors have  held  to  be  the  most  perfect  forms  of  Church 
government  and  of  religious  creed.  Thus  it  was  a 
matter  of  course  that  many  a  Borderer  suffered  for 
the  sake  of  the  Covenant,  although,  when  compared 
with  the  vast  number  of  those  from  Clydesdale  and 
from  Galloway,  the  percentage  of  Border  men  who 
went  to  '  glorify  God  at  the  Grassmarket '  is  but 
small. 

James  the  Sixth  boasted  that  he  'knew  the  stomach' 
of  his  Scottish  people.  His  treatment  of  the  Border 
clans  makes  one  doubtful  if  he  knew  as  much  as  he 
thought  he  did.  In  all  things  pertaining  to  moral 
courage,  he  was  Darnley's  true  son.  His  Presby- 
terianism  was  opportunism.  He,  as  well  as  his 
grandson,  was  of  opinion  that  *  Presbytery  was  no 
religion  for  a  gentleman,'  and  at  heart  he  was  always 
Episcopalian.  But  he  had  neither  the  honesty  and 
the  loyalty  of  his  mother  nor  of  his  son  with  regard 
to  his  form  of  religion.  So  John  Knox  preached  the 
sermon  at  his  coronation,  and  had  to  thole  the  sight 
of  his  monarch  being  anointed  in  the  Episcopal 
manner. 

When  Charles  I.  came  to  Edinburgh  in  1633,  John 
Knox,  mercifully  for  his  peace  of  mind,  had  been 
sixty  years  in  his  grave.  Thus  was  the  Reformer 


332  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

spared  the  heart-breaking  sight  of  the  King  being 
anointed  by  bishops  who  wore  what  he  had  been 
wont  to  call  '  Papist  rags,'  and  who  had  altar,  crucifix, 
candles,  and  all  complete.  At  St.  Giles',  next  morning, 
two  English  chaplains  took  the  service,  and  thereafter, 
at  the  adjoining  house,  the  royal  party  held  a  banquet. 
No  pious  Sabbath  entertainment  this.  The  din  from 
'  men,  musical  instruments,  trumpets,  playing,  singing, 
also  shooting  of  cannon,'  was  such  '  that  no  service 
was  had  in  the  afternoon  either  in  the  greater  or  lesser 
kirk  of  St.  Giles.'  It  was  not  long  after  his  return  to 
England  that  Charles  I.  frankly  showed  his  Scottish 
subjects  his  hand  in  regard  to  the  form  of  worship 
that  he  desired  should  be  theirs.  Archbishop  Laud 
stood  sponsor  for  the  Liturgy  which  Charles  gifted 
to  his  Scottish  subjects.  '  A  Popish-English-Scottish- 
Mass-Service-Book '  was  what  those  subjects  held 
it  to  be,  and  when  Jenny  Geddes  hurled  her  '  creepie 
stool '  at  the  head  of  the  surpliced  Dean  who  intro- 
duced the  Prayer  Book  to  an  aggrieved  congregation 
in  St.  Giles',  she  was  held  to  be  adequately  representing 
the  men  and  women  of  her  nation. 

'  Dost  thou  say  Mass  at  my  lug  ?  '  questioned  the 
outraged  Jenny.  That  was  the  key  to  it  all.  It  was, 
in  the  minds  of  the  people,  l  the  Mass.'  John  Knox 
had  not  lived  in  vain.  A  religious  vendetta  dies 
hard,  and  to  the  Scottish  Presbyterian  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  as  it  is  still  to  many  a  Protestant, 


THE  COVENANTERS  333 

the  Roman  Church  was  the  Scarlet  Woman,  the 
Whore  of  Babylon.  Episcopacy  meant  only  the 
thin  end  of  the  wedge,  yet  an  end  sufficiently  thick 
to  touch  the  pockets  as  well  as  the  religious  tenets 
of  the  nation.  At  any  cost  '  the  Mass  '  must  be  kept 
out  of  Scotland,  which  had  so  lately  been  purged  from 
idolatry  by  the  great  iconoclast,  and  whose  children 
were  suckled  in  the  creed  of  John  Calvin,  nurtured 
in  the  tender  doctrine  of  predestination. 

On  March  1,  1638,  in  the  churchyard  of  Grey  friars 
in  Edinburgh,  the  National  Covenant,  a  magnificently 
comprehensive  charter,  was  signed  by  those  who  were 
ready  to  fight  and  to  die  for  the  sake  of  Presbyterian- 
ism.  Noblemen  and  gentlemen,  men  of  every  rank 
and  station,  wrote  their  names  on  the  document  that 
lay  spread  out  on  the  flat,  grey  tombstone ;  and, 
first  of  all,  in  the  bold,  clear  hand  that  is  so  character- 
istic of  the  man,  came  the  signature  '  Montr ose.' 
Many  signed  with  their  blood,  and  many  and  many  a 
man  bore  witness  with  his  blood  to  the  faith  that  he 
clung  to  ere  the  contest,  that  was  that  day  formally 
begun,  came  to  an  end.  Things  had  gone  too  far 
for  peaceful  settlement.  If  the  Scots  would  not  say 
their  prayers  in  the  desired  way,  they  must  be  soundly 
trounced  into  the  proper  posture.  A  royal  army  of 
twenty-one  thousand  came  north  to  administer  a 
beating  to  the  rebels,  and,  meantime,  the  Covenanters 
seized  the  castles  of  Edinburgh,  Dumbarton,  Douglas, 


334  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

and  Dalkeith.  The  Earl  Marischal,  Montrose,  went 
off  to  deal  with  the  non-Covenanters  of  the  north, 
while  General  Leslie,  '  an  old  little  crooked  soldier,' 
who  had  fought  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  and  gained 
the  friendship  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  himself,  went  to 
the  Border.  With  Leslie  in  command,  there  was 
little  likelihood  of  there  being  any  lack  of  military 
discipline  in  his  troops. 

On  June  5,  1639,  the  army  of  the  Covenant  was 
within  sight  of  the  army  of  King  Charles — the  King's 
army  lying  by  the  Tweed,  at  the  Birks,  three  miles 
from  Berwick,  while  the  Covenanters  encamped  on 
Duns  Law,  the  broomy  hill  that  slopes  gently  up 
behind  the  little  Border  town.  To  Robert  Baillie, 
Principal  of  the  University  of  Glasgow,  preacher  to  the 
Ayrshire  contingent,  we  owe  our  most  vivid  account 
of  the  encampment  at  Duns.  He  gloried  in  the 
perfect  preparedness  of  the  Covenanting  army.  '  It 
would  have  done  yow  good  to  have  casten  your  eyes 
athort  our  brave  and  rich  Hill,  as  oft  I  did,  with 
great  contentment  and  joy.'  Their  colonels,  he  says, 
were  mostly  noblemen  —  Argyll,  Rothes,  Cassilis, 
Yester,  Dalhousie,  Eglinton,  Lindsay,  and  many 
another ;  their  captains  '  for  the  most  part  barrons 
or  gentlemen  of  good  note ' ;  their  lieutenants  '  almost 
all  sojours  who  had  served  over  sea  in  good  charges.' 
4  Our  sojours  were  all  lustie  and  full  of  courage ;  the 
most  of  them  stout  young  plewmen ;  great  cheerfull- 


THE  COVENANTERS  335 

ness  in  the  face  of  all.'  In  front  of  their  captain's 
tent  door  each  company  flew  *  a  brave  new  colour,' 
bearing  the  Scottish  Arms,  and,  in  letters  of  gold, 
the  legend,  '  For  Christ's  Crown  and  Covenant.' 
The  sounds  of  prayer,  of  the  singing  of  psalms,  and 
of  reading  of  the  Scriptures,  came  from  the  tents 
in  the  morning  and  at  even,  although  the  truthful 
chronicler  has  regretfully  to  own  that  '  in  some 
quarters  '  there  also  existed  some  '  swearing,  cursing, 
and  brawling,'  which  grieved  his  righteous  heart. 
Presumably  those  veterans  who  had  served  with 
Gustavus  had  still  something  to  learn  in  the  matter 
of  godly  conversation.  The  old  song  of  '  Leslie's 
March '  tells  us  almost  as  well  as  does  Mr.  Baillie 
what  was  the  sanguine  spirit  of  the  Covenanting  troops. 
'  Cock  up  your  bonnets,'  says  Leslie  to  his  men — 

*  The  kist-fou  o'  whistles 
That  maks  sic  a  cleerie, 
Our  pipers  braw 
Shall  hae  them  a' — 
Laud  and  his  crew  shall  gang  tapsalteerie ! 

•  .  •  •  •  • 

When  to  the  kirk  we  come, 
We  '11  purge  it  ilka  room, 
Frae  popish  relics,  and  a'  innovation, 
That  a'  the  world  may  see, 
There 's  nane  in  the  right  but  we  !  * 

From  his  camp  in  the  Tweed  valley,  King  Charles 
probably  saw  enough  of  the  soldiers  of  the  Covenant 
on  Duns  Hill  to  realise  that  defiance  meant  defeat. 


336  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

He  compromised,  and  the  Pacification  of  Berwick 
(June  18,  1639)  was  the  result.  This  treaty  was  a 
singularly  barren  one.  For  one  year  only,  the  peace 
lasted.  The  heather  on  the  Lowland  hills  was  purple 
when  the  Covenanters  marched  into  England,  crossing 
the  Tweed  at  Coldstream.  Dice  were  cast  by  those 
in  command  as  to  who  should  cross  first,  and  the  lot 
fell  on  Montrose.  In  full  view  of  the  enemy,  he  gave 
the  army  a  lead  through  the  river,  wading  on  foot, 
4  boots  and  all,'  to  ascertain  the  depth  of  the  water, 
and  returning  again  when  he  had  crossed,  so  as  to 
give  them  confidence.  The  river  took  them  up  to 
the  middle,  and  was  running  so  strong  that  a  regiment 
of  cavalry  had  to  be  stationed  so  as  to  break  the 
force  of  the  current.  One  man  was  drowned,  but 
their  leader's  cheerful  mien  did  much  to  spur  them  on. 
They  marched  to  Newcastle,  which  they  occupied 
without  difficulty,  and  for  the  next  eleven  months 
they  were  masters  of  Northumberland  and  Durham. 
At  the  end  of  that  time  it  was  no  longer  a  case  between 
Presbyterianism  and  Episcopacy,  but  a  war  between 
Roundheads  and  Cavaliers,  and  the  Covenanters,  as 
was  only  natural,  allied  themselves  with  the  enemies 
of  royalty.  Then  it  was  that  some  of  the  men  who 
had  defended  and  were  ready  to  fight  for  the  Covenant 
showed  that,  with  them,  the  old  belief  in  the  divine 
right  of  kings  came  before  the  rights  of  any  Church. 
4  God  and  my  King '  was  the  motto  for  such  men, 


THE  COVENANTERS  337 

and  foremost  amongst  them,  as  he  had  been  foremost 
amongst  the  men  of  the  Covenant,  was  the  Marquis 
of  Montrose. 

During  those  dark  years,  when  Scottish  history  is 
crowded  by 

'  A  noble  army,  men  and  boys. 
The  matron  and  the  maid/ 

who  suffered  or  died  for  what  they  held  dearer  than 
life  itself,  the  figures  of  two  cavaliers  stand  out  from 
amongst  the  saintly  multitude  of  those  who  coveted 
martyrdom,  and  to  the  lineal  spiritual  descendants 
of  the  men  of  the  Covenant  they  still  bear  the  brand 
of  bloody  persecutors. 

These  cavaliers  are  the  two  kinsmen,  Claverhouse 
and  Montrose ;  and  in  certain  minds  they  must  for  ever 
wear  the  garb  of  bloodthirsty  profligates,  of  vicious 
and  cruel  enemies  to  the  Church  of  Christ,  neither 
will  their  haters  be  persuaded,  '  though  one  rose  from 
the  dead.'  Yet,  perhaps,  some  of  the  saintly  ministers 
of  the  Covenant  gained  their  martyrs'  crowns  more 
easily,  and  left  behind  them  a  less  perfect  record  of 
purity  of  soul  and  complete  self-sacrifice,  than  did 
James  Graham,  Marquis  of  Montrose. 

Till  Montrose  died  he  was  a  Presbyterian,  but  he 
was  not  one  of  those  who  believed  that  there  was  but 
one  road  to  Heaven,  and  that  the  straight  and  very 
narrow  path  of  their  own  unassailable  dogma.  '  Serve 
God.  Honour  the  King,'  said  St.  Peter,  and  so  long 


338  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

as  he  served  his  God  with  a  faithful  heart,  the  form 
of  his  service  mattered  but  little  to  Montrose.  But 
to  honour  the  King  there  was  but  one  way.  He 
could 

'  Be  governed  by  no  other  sway 
Than  purest  Monarchy.' 

When  affairs  in  England  had  gone  badly  for  Charles 
i.,  this  gallantest  and  truest  of  his  cavaliers  marched 
to  the  north,  with  a  small  body  of  horse  and  foot,  to 
do  battle  for  his  King.  As  far  as  Dumfries  he  got 
safely,  and  then  was  forced  to  retreat  hastily  to 
Carlisle.  Three  months  later,  he  again  made  his 
way  across  the  Border,  this  time  disguised  as  a  groom, 
and  with  only  two  companions — Colonel  Sibbald 
and  Captain  Hollo.  Twice,  on  their  venturesome 
way,  they  were  stopped ;  once,  in  Cumberland,  by 
one  of  Sir  Richard  Graham's  scouts,  who  satisfied 
himself  that  they  were  soldiers  of  the  Covenant, 
and  let  them  go,  and,  later  on,  by  a  Scottish  soldier. 
But  the  Scot  had  seen  service  where  Montrose,  the 
gay  gallant,  was  a  hero  to  his  men,  and  there  was  no 
disguising  from  him  the  '  quick  and  piercing  grey  eye,' 
and  the  '  singular  grace  in  riding '  of  the  groom  who 
was  no  groom.  '  What !  do  I  not  know  my  Lord 
Marquis  of  Montrose  well  enough  ?  '  he  said,  when 
Montrose  would  have  tried  to  keep  up  the  little 
comedy.  '  Go  your  wav,  and  God  be  with  you 
wherever  you  go.' 


THE  COVENANTERS  339 

'  A  few  crowns  '  were  given  to  the  man  by  Montrose 
— always  noted  for  his  open-handedness — but  one 
is  fain  to  believe  that  it  was  love,  not  money,  that 
kept  the  old  soldier  faithful.  Near  Perth,  in  the 
house  of  his  kinsman,  Graham  of  Inchbrakie,  Montrose 
found  sanctuary,  and  was  not  long  in  raising  an 
army.  Highlanders  and  wild  Irish  composed  it. 
They  had  no  money,  no  cannon,  not  more  than  a 
single  round  of  ammunition,  and  the  arms  of  the 
Irish  were  rusty,  battered  matchlocks,  pikes,  clubs, 
bows  and  arrows.  One-third  of  the  army,  indeed, 
had  no  better  weapons  than  the  stones  they  picked 
up  as  they  fought.  But  it  was  an  army  that  grew 
day  by  day,  and  its  power  was  quickly  fed  by  an 
unbroken  series  of  brilliant  successes.  It  seemed  as 
though  the  poet-soldier  were  going  to  win  all  Scotland 
for  his  King,  and  even  England  feared  what  might 
come  to  pass  once  he  and  his  men,  with  their  bunches 
of  ripe  grain  in  their  caps,  had  crossed  the  Border. 
In  the  days  when  he  fought  on  the  side  of  the  Covenant 
it  was  he  who  instituted  the  fashion  that  each  man  of 
his  host  should  wear  a  blue  ribbon,  worn  scarfways, 
or  a  bunch  of  blue  ribbons  decking  his  bonnet,  and 
presently  even  the  leaders  did  away  with  hats  and 
wore  the  bonnet  with  its  streamers  of  blue — '  the 
Covenanter's  ribbon,'  Montrose  dubbed  it.  '  This 
was  Montrose's  whimsie,'  mocked  a  parson  of  his  day, 
who  probably  better  realised  the  value  of  Montrose's 


340  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

love  for  emblems  when  '  all  the  blue  bonnets  were 
over  the  Border.'  If  Montrose  had  his  4  whimsies,' 
none  can  say  that  his  fancies  were  those  of  the  effemi- 
nate poet.  He  was  soldier  and  statesman,  as  well  as 
artist,  and  the  army  he  commanded  was  one  to  strike 
terror  to  the  hearts  of  the  vanquished.  The  tales 
of  the  misdeeds  of  his  troops,  as  chronicled  by  his 
Covenanting  enemies,  make  but  sorry  reading.  When 
Aberdeen  was  sacked  by  them,  even  his  own  friends 
have  to  tell  a  piteous  tale.  '  The  unarmed  citizens 
were  butchered  like  sheep  in  the  streets.  The  better 
sort  were  stripped  before  death  that  their  clothes 
might  not  be  soiled  with  their  blood ;  women  and 
children  were  slaughtered  for  bewailing  their  dead, 
and  those  women  were  happiest  who  expiated  their 
tears  with  life.' 

It  was  not  only  at  the  hands  of  Montrose's  Irish 
that  the  north  suffered.  Argyll's  Highlanders  had 
already  burned  '  the  bonnie  house  o'  Airlie,'  and 
many  and  many  an  atrocity  had  been  committed 
in  the  country  of  the  uncovenanted  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord.  But  for  the  atrocities  of  Montrose's 
Irish  there  is  no  apology  to  offer.  That  he  held  them 
within  bounds  as  well  as  mortal  man  was  able  to  do, 
is  all  that  one  can  say.  And  if  we  read  the  tale  of 
what  our  own  British  troops  did  in  the  Peninsula  in 
later  days, — if  we  have  heard  of  what  European 
armies  did  in  China  in  our  own  times,  how  can  we 


THE  COVENANTERS  341 

afford  to  throw  a  stone  at  the  general  who  only 
controlled  his  undisciplined  troops  in  the  hour  of 
victory  as  far  as  in  his  power  lay  ? 

From  his  triumphs  in  the  north  Montrose  marched 
south,  in  the  hope  that  a  victorious  King  was  to  meet 
him  somewhere  near  the  Border,  Leslie's  army  defeated, 
and  with  the  Scottish  nobles  rallying  round  the  royal 
standard.  But  the  motto  of  King  Charles  was  not 
that  of  Montrose — 

'  He  either  fears  his  fate  too  much, 

Or  his  deserts  are  small, 
Who  dares  not  put  it  to  the  touch, 
To  gain  or  lose  it  all.' 

The  King  had  not  dared  to  do  battle  with  Leslie 
even  when  victory  seemed  well  within  his  grasp,  and 
when  Montrose  went  to  meet  the  foe  that  his  King 
had  feared  to  engage,  it  was  with  an  army  that  had 
sadly  fallen  away.  The  Highlanders  had  mostly  gone 
home  '  to  look  to  their  own  affairs.'  Three  thousand 
of  them  left  his  standard  because  he  would  not  allow 
them  to  plunder  Glasgow.  The  Gordons  had  taken 
offence  and  deserted  him,  taking  almost  all  the 
cavalry  with  them.  But  he  still  owned  a  gallant 
little  bodyguard  of  Ogilvys,  and  the  Border  earls, 
Home,  Roxburghe,  and  Traquair,  had  cordially  invited 
him  to  come  to  the  Border  and  join  them  in  fighting 
for  King  and  Crown.  Montrose,  whose  word  was 
ever  his  bond,  was  not  likely  to  doubt  the  faith  of  men 


342  A.  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

who  had  pledged  themselves  to  the  royal  cause,  so 
south  he  marched,  down  Gala  Water  and  Tweedside, 
as  far  as  Kelso.  There  he  learned  that  Home  and 
Roxburghe  had  kept  up  their  family  tradition  that 
discretion  was  ever  the  better  part  of  valour.  They 
had  surrendered  to  Leslie  and  his  troops  and  been 
taken,  as  prisoners,  to  Berwick.  Traquair,  more  of 
a  trimmer  than  either  of  them,  sent  a  troop  of  horse, 
under  his  son,  Lord  Linton,  to  support  the  royal 
standard.  When  Leslie,  having  heard  from  Rox- 
burghe and  from  Home,  if  not  from  Traquair  himself, 
of  the  poverty  of  the  land,  was  marching  towards 
Selkirk,  the  Traquair  rats  quickly  left  the  ship. 
Montrose  soon  realised  how  heavy  were  the  odds,  yet 
when  Leslie,  with  his  well- disciplined  army  of  between 
five  thousand  and  six  thousand  troopers  marched 
down  Gala  Water  and  camped  at  Melrose,  there  was 
no  sign  of  dismay  on  the  part  of  the  general  whose 
fighting  men  consisted  of  wild  Irish  and  a  few  degener- 
ate and  ill-equipped  sons  of  the  men  who  held  the 
Border  in  bygone  days.  In  September  1645,  Mon- 
trose's  ragged  army,  scarcely  one  thousand  in  all, 
having  at  Kelso,  and  afterwards  at  Jedburgh,  learned 
that  the  Borderers  were  Covenanters  first,  Royalists 
afterwards,  took  up  their  quarters  on  the  level  ground 
immediately  between  the  junction  of  the  Tweed  and 
the  Ettrick,  at  what  is  the  Selkirk  cricket-ground 
of  to-day.  The  cavalry  were  quartered  in  Selkirk; 


THE  COVENANTERS  343 

where  also,  in  a  house  close  to  the  West  Port,  Montrose 
himself  stayed.  The  trees  of  Harehead  Wood,  that  lies 
to  the  west  of  Philiphaugh,  were  wearing  autumn 
colours ;  in  the  fields  the  stocks  were  still  standing, 
ready  for  Montrose's  men  to  tear  up  to  make  bunches 
of  yellow  grain  to  stick  in  their  caps,  according  to 
their  leader's  latest  4  whimsie.'  Ettrick  and  Yarrow 
and  Tweed  made  gentle  music  down  their  valleys,  and 
the  sleepy  little  town  of  Selkirk  seems  to  have  had  a 
somnolent  effect  upon  the  whole  of  that  ill-starred  army. 
On  the  evening  of  September  12th,  Montrose  for 
once  relaxed  his  discipline  and  gave  the  duty  of 
placing  outposts  into  the  hands  of  others.  Singularly 
inefficient  those  outposts  were.  During  the  night 
rumours  reached  Montrose  of  the  approach  of  the 
enemy,  but  his  scouts  rode  in,  drenched  with  the  thick 
grey  haar,  from  various  directions,  and  '  wished 
damnation  to  themselves  if  an  enemy  were  within 
ten  miles.'  And,  meantime,  from  Melrose,  Leslie  was 
making  the  advance — an  advance  that  was  helped  by 
the  mist  that  blotted  out  the  Eildons,  clung  to  the 
sighing  rivers,  and  hung  round  Black  Andrew  and 
the  Three  Brethren,  a  chilling,  impenetrable  veil  of 
sad  colour.  The  clatter  of  hoofs  at  midnight,  telling 
that  Linton  and  his  men  were  hieing  them  home  to 
Traquair,  was  deadened  by  the  density  of  the  atmo- 
sphere. The  sound  of  the  approaching  army  also, 
apparently,  fell  upon  muffled  ears. 


344  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

The  ringing  sound  of  Leslie's  trumpet  within  the 
camp  was  the  first  intimation  that  the  Royalists  had 
that  black  disaster  was  upon  them.  Montrose  was 
breakfasting  in  Selkirk  when  the  sound  of  firing 
brought  him  the  untoward  news.  In  a  couple  of 
minutes  he  was  off,  on  the  first  horse  that  came  handy, 
clattering  down  the  brae  to  the  river  at  a  breakneck 
gallop,  splashing  through  the  water  under  the  fire  of 
the  enemy.  Some  of  his  cavaliers  came  close  on  his 
heels ;  the  rest  of  the  cavalry  followed  in  disorderly 
haste.  For  a  short  time  a  gallant  stand  was  made, 
and  twice  the  Covenanters  were  beaten  back.  But 
there  were  six  thousand  cavalry  against  six  hundred 
infantry  and  a  few  score  of  horse,  and  soon  Leslie's 
tactics  came  to  the  rescue,  and  two  thousand  of  his 
troopers  were  sent  to  attack  the  Royalists  in  the  rear. 
From  the  high  bank  above  the  ford  the  Selkirk  folk 
watched,  as  if  from  the  gallery  of  a  playhouse,  the 
terrible  play  that  was  being  enacted  in  that  haugh 
by  the  river.  High  on  the  river-bank  a  Highland 
piper  marched  up  and  down,  playing  his  best  for  the 
troops  who  had  so  many  times  in  the  north  fought 
their  way  to  victory  to  the  sound  of  his  pipes ;  but, 
ere  long,  a  Covenanter's  bullet  stopped  his  music 
for  ever.  Like  a  shot  rabbit  he  rolled  over  and  over, 
down  the  brae,  dropping  like  lead  into  the  pool  that 
goes  by  the  name  of  t  The  Piper's  Pool '  to  this  day. 
4  The  Piper  of  Soney  '  is  supposed  to  have  been  his 


THE  COVENANTERS  345 

territorial  designation,  and,  at  the  first  skirl  of  the 
pipes,  Montrose  is  said  to  have  called  to  him  that  if 
he  would  play  all  day,  he  should  be  paid  well  when 
the  victory  was  won.  Hence  the  old  saying,  when 
one's  labours  are  fruitless — 

'  He  is  like  the  Piper  o'  Soney, 
That  played  a'  the  day  and  gat  nae  money.' 

How  could  the  children  of  Selkirk  ever  forget  the 
sights  that  they  saw  that  day  ?  The  story  of  the 
death  of  the  piper,  and  of  a  certain  white  pony  that 
had  escaped  from  the  battlefield  to  be  commandeered 
by  him — a  youthful  raider  of  five — was  handed  on 
with  vivid  detail  to  his  children  by  an  ancestor  of 
one  who  now  tells  the  tale. 

Down  there  in  the  haugh  some  hundreds  of  the 
Irish  fought  like  heroes,  but  they  had  no  chance. 
They  were  between  two  fires,  decimated  by  Leslie's 
guns  on  the  high  ground  above  them,  while,  from  the 
other  side  of  the  field,  the  cavalry  rode  them  down,  and 
cut  them  in  pieces.  Who  can  wonder  that  those  who 
survived  after  nearly  an  hour  of  this,  threw  down  their 
arms  when  they  were  told  that  their  lives  would  be 
spared  if  they  did  so  ?  Montrose  was  ready  to  fight 
to  the  death,  and  round  him  fought  a  little  band  of 
cavaliers,  to  whose  names  be  ever  glory  given — the 
Marquis  of  Douglas,  Lord  Napier,  then  a  man  of 
seventy,  and  the  Master  of  Napier  ;  young  Drummond 
of  Balloch,  Napier's  nephew ;  the  Lords  Erskine  and 


346  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Fleming,  Sir  John  Dalziel,  and  some  others.  There 
were  about  thirty  horsemen  in  all,  but  those  kept 
a  whole  army  at  bay.  They,  at  last,  persuaded 
Montrose  that  his  was  too  valuable  a  life  to  his  cause 
to  be  thus  thrown  away,  and  urged  him  to  fly.  Then, 
in  a  Homeric  charge,  Montrose  at  their  head,  they 
carved  their  way  through  Leslie's  cavalry  and  galloped' 
up  the  Yarrow  valley  towards  Minchmoor,  a  party 
of  dragoons  in  hot  pursuit.  A  skirmish  followed,  in 
which  Montrose  held  the  honours,  and  a  captain  and 
two  cornets  who  were  taken  prisoners  were  released 
by  him  on  giving  the  promise  that  three  Royalist 
prisoners  of  rank  equal  to  their  own  should  be  released 
upon  their  rejoining  the  victorious  army. 

In  the  Border  the  Covenanting  spirit  was  abroad 
and  Royalism  was  nearly  dead.  Montrose  and  his 
Irish  represented  to  the  peasants  of  Selkirk  and 
Peebles  and  Roxburgh  the  spiritual  oppressors  of 
their  land.  Woe,  then,  to  those  who  sought  to  escape 
from  that  bloody  field  by  the  braes  of  Yarrow  and 
the  moors  of  Peeblesshire,  or  to  find  hiding-places 
in  the  woods  by  the  Tweed.  They  were  captured 
by  the  country-folk  and  handed  over  to  that  good 
Protestant,  David  Leslie,  that  they  might  be  given 
their  deserts.  Already  those  Irish  who,  on  the  field, 
were  promised  quarter,  had  been  given  what  was  held 
to  be  their  due.  Unarmed,  defenceless,  surrounded 
by  a  strong  guard,  they  were  marched  to  a  field  near 


IN    THE    DOWIE    DENS    OF   YARROW 


THE  COVENANTERS  847 

at  hand,  and  there  shot  down  —  by  order  of  the 
commandant.  Nor  were  women  and  children  spared 
that  day  by  the  ruthless  soldiers  of  the  Covenant. 
They  were  all  under  the  same  condemnation  in  the  eyes 
of  those  whose  battle-cry  at  Tippermuir  had  been 
1  Jesus  and  No  Quarter.'  '  Thine  eye  shalt  not  pity 
and  thou  shalt  not  spare '  was  the  text  of  one  of  the 
sermons  preached  thereafter  by  one  of  the  men  who 
believed  himself  to  be  a  faithful  servant  of  Christ. 
Women  and  little  c  cook  boys  '  were  slain  in  the  camp. 
Close  to  Newark  Castle,  at  the  spot  known  as  '  Slain 
Men's  Lea,'  many  prisoners  were  butchered.  In  the 
Tolbooth  of  Selkirk  those  who  survived  the  day  of 
battle  were  kept  until  all  consciences  could  be  satisfied 
by  a  farcical  trial,  when  they  were  promptly  put  to 
death  in  the  Market  Place.  Amongst  them  were  six 
Irishwomen,  whose  only  crime  apparently  was  that 
they  had  been  taken  on  the  field  of  battle.  The 
two  Irish  officers  who  had  commanded  the  infantry 
which  made  so  fair  a  stand  were  taken  to  Edinburgh 
and  hanged,  without  trial,  on  the  Castle  Hill.  Of 
those  others  of  the  Royalist  leaders  who  fell  into 
their  enemies'  hands,  Sir  William  Rollo,  Sir  Philip 
Nisbet,  and  Ogilvy  of  Innerquharity  were  beheaded 
without  delay. 

'  Eh  !  but  the  wark  goes  bonnily  on ! '  exclaimed 
the  saintly  David  Dickson,  Moderator  of  the  General 
Assembly,  upon  hearing  this  joyful  news. 


348  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

The  others  were  imprisoned  while  Parliament  dis- 
cussed the  case.  It  was  not  quite  so  easy  to  dispose 
of  the  leaders  as  of  the  rank  and  file.  '  The  House 
ordains,'  says  an  Act  of  the  Scottish  Parliament  of 
that  time,  '  Irish  prisoners  taken  at  and  after  Philip- 
haugh,  in  all  the  prisons  of  the  kingdom,  especially 
in  the  prisons  of  Selkirk,  Jedburgh,  Glasgow,  Dum- 
barton, and  Perth,  shall  be  executed  without  any 
assize  or  process,  conform  to  the  treaty  between  the 
two  kingdoms  passed  in  act.'  While  Parliament 
pondered,  c  humble  remonstrances '  came  in  from 
the  Commission  of  the  General  Assembly  and  from 
various  Synods,  begging  that  these  sons  of  Belial 
should  be  put  to  death.  The  Synod  of  Merse  and 
Teviotdale  besought  the  Parliament  to  do  what  '  the 
Lord  calls  for  at  your  hands,'  and  to  *  cut  off  the  horns 
of  the  wicked.'  And  the  horns — and  heads — of  '  the 
wicked  '  were  cut  off  with  little  more  ado. 

Of  the  battle  of  Philiphaugh  we  find  records  in 
the  session  papers  of  many  parishes.  From  Tyn- 
inghame  comes  the  following :  c  13th  September  1645. — 
James  Grahame's  army  utterlie  defaitt  at  Phillip 
Hauche,  prased  be  God.' 

'  The  battle  of  Philiphaugh  ! '  writes  Mark  Napier. 
4  It  was  no  more  a  battle  than  it  was  a  wedding.  .  .  . 
In  recording  the  bloody  day  of  Philiphaugh,  we  may 
speak  of  a  surprise,  a  rout,  a  capture,  a  massacre, 
but  never  of  a  battle.' 


THE  COVENANTERS  349 

And  shameful  it  is  for  us  Scots  to  have  to  own  that 
the  massacre  was  one  that  was  not  confined  to  the 
field  of  battle. 

Up  the  dowie  dens  of  Yarrow  rode  Montrose  and 
his  little  following,  over  Minchmoor,  until,  sixteen 
miles  from  Philiphaugh,  he  reached  the  old  grey  house 
of  Traquair,  which  only  a  few  hours  before  he  had 
looked  on  as  the  home  of  a  friend.  But  when  he 
inquired  for  Traquair  and  his  son,  he  was  told  that 
they  were  '  not  at  home.'  c  Notwithstanding,'  writes 
a  chronicler,  '  there  are  gentlemen  of  credit  that 
testify  that  they  were  both  within.'  In  years  to  come, 
Traquair  was  to  have  more  than  one  experience  of 
finding  doors  closed  in  his  face,  for  he  ended  his  days 
as  a  street  beggar. 

Local  legends  of  that  dreary  ride  still  hold  their 
own  in  Yarrow.  Montrose  is  reported  to  have  thrown 
his  treasure-chest  into  the  dark  pool  in  Yarrow 
known  as  the  Mystor  (treasure)  Pool,  near  Hare- 
head  Wood,  telling  the  Devil  to  keep  it  for  him 
until  he  returned.  Many  a  lad  has  sought  it  there, 
but  one  rusty  Lochaber  axe  is  all  that  has  rewarded 
the  seekers.  Another  legend  says  that  as  Montrose 
rode  up  the  valley  he  cast  the  chest  in  at  the  door 
of  a  cottage  at  Foulshiels  and  galloped  on.  The 
owners  of  the  cottage,  an  old  man  and  woman, 
were  still  disputing  as  to  what  they  should  do 
with  the  unexpected  fortune,  when  some  of 


350  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Leslie's  troopers  arrived  and  relieved  them  of  all 
responsibility. 

From  Traquair  the  fugitives  went  westward,  cross- 
ing the  Tweed  at  Howford,  and  reaching  Biggar  in 
the  evening.  At  dawn  next  morning  they  forded  the 
Clyde.  Never  again  did  Montrose  hear  the  music 
of  the  Border  rivers,  and  it  was  a  woeful  weird  that  he 
had  to  dree  ere  his  warfare  was  accomplished.  The 
sale  of  his  King  to  the  English  by  the  men  of  the 
Covenant — 

'  L'Ecosse,  parjure  a  sa  foi, 
Pour  un  denier  vendait  son  Roi ! ' — 

the  execution  of  Charles, — these  were  black  trials 
for  one  who  loved  his  King  to  the  death,  and  to  whom 
the  honour  of  his  land  was  ever  dear. 

'  I  '11  sing  thine  obsequies  with  trumpet  sounds, 
And  write  thine  epitaph  in  blood  and  wounds.' 

To  Charles  n.  he  transferred  his  devotion.  'Your 
Sacred  Majesty's  most  humble,  faithful,  and  most 
passionate  subject,'  he  signed  himself  in  1649.  It  was 
later  on  in  that  year  that  the  King's  faithful  subject 
was  taken  as  a  felon  through  the  streets  of  Edinburgh, 
in  a  cart  driven  by  the  hangman,  his  hands  bound, 
so  that  if  the  mob,  as  was  hoped,  should  stone  him, 
he  would  not  be  able  to  protect  his  face.  From  no 
indignity  that  it  was  possible  to  inflict  upon  him 
was  he  spared.  In  prison  he  was  baited  by  the 


THE  COVENANTERS  351 

Covenanted  preachers,  who  felt  that  by  so  doing  they 
were  obeying  their  Divine  Master's  behests.  One  of 
his  gaolers,  the  afterwards  notorious  Major  Weir, 
knowing  that  he  hated  the  smell  of  tobacco,  did  what 
he  could  to  make  his  cell  disagreeable  to  him  by 
persistently  smoking  there  in  spite  of  remonstrance. 

That  day  in  May  when  Montrose,  head  erect, 
courage,  loyalty,  serenity  all  as  perfect  as  the  honour 
he  had  never  stained,  walked  to  the  scaffold,  was  a 
shameful  dav  for  those  who  did  him  to  death.  He 

• 

looked  '  like  a  bridegroom,'  wrote  one  who  saw  him 
in  his  gallant  array — a  '  fyne  scarlet  coat  to  his  knee, 
trimmed  with  silver  galoons,  lined  with  taffeta,' 
roses  in  his  shoon,  and  *  stockings  of  incarnet  silk ' 
that  are  at  Thirlestane  now,  in  possession  of  the  Napiers. 
Even  the  hangman  was  moved  to  tears.  To  him,  his 
Charon,  Montrose — to  the  end  a  confirmed  giver  of 
largesse — gave  four  gold  pieces. 

'  I  never  saw  a  more  sweeter  carriage  in  a  man 
in  all  my  life  ...  he  is  just  now  a  turning  from 
the  ladder,'  says  the  chronicler,  '  but  his  counten- 
ance changes  not.' 

To  the  waiting  crowds  he  said :  '  It  is  spoken  of  me 
that  I  should  blame  the  King.  God  forbid.  For  the 
late  King,  he  lived  a  saint  and  died  a  martyr.  .  .  .  For 
his  Majesty,  now  living,  never  any  people,  I  believe, 
might  be  more  happy  in  a  King.  His  commands  were 
most  just,  and  I  obeyed  them.  ...  I  leave  my  soul 


352  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

to  God,  my  service  to  my  Prince,  my  good-will  to  my 
friends,  my  love  and  charity  to  you  all.'  *  The 
ministers,  even  on  the  scaffold,  were  very  bitter 
against  him.' 

'He  would  not  deign  them  word  nor  sign, 

But  alone  he  bent  the  knee ; 
And  veiled  his  face  for  Christ's  dear  grace 
Beneath  the  gallows  tree. 

Then  radiant  and  serene  he  rose, 

And  cast  his  cloak  away  : 
For  he  had  ta'en  his  latest  look 

Of  earth  and  sun  and  day.' 

So  did  the  curtain  fall  on  a  gallant  cavalier,  who 
never  bent  the  knee  save  to  God  and  to  his  own 
crowned  King. 

Montrose's  body  was  hacked  into  many  parts. 
His  head  was  stuck  up  to  blacken  on  the  Tolbooth ; 
his  quarters  were  sent  to  adorn  the  ports  of  Glasgow, 
Stirling,  Perth,  and  Aberdeen;  the  maimed  trunk 
was  thrust  into  a  shallow  grave  in  the  felon's  grave- 
yard on  the  Boroughmuir.  Two  nights  only  did  it 
lie  there,  and  then  a  gallant  little  band  of  adventurers, 
inspired  by  his  kinswoman,  the  Lady  Napier,  dared 
to  disinter  it,  and  brought  to  her  care  the  heart,  than 
which  none  nobler,  truer,  or  more  loyal  ever  beat. 

Long  years  after  the  battle  of  Philiphaugh,  there 
was  found  on  the  field  a  little  heart-shaped  locket. 
On  one  side  is  carved  a  long,  straight,  heavy  sword, 


THE  COVENANTERS  353 

and  below  it  a  winged  heart.  On  the  other  side  is  a 
heart  pierced  through  with  darts,  with  the  motto 
4 1  live  and  dye  for  loyaltye.'  It  contains  a  beautiful, 
minute  alto  relievo  likeness  of  Montrose,  facing  which 
are  the  words  '  I  mourne  for  Monarchic.'  The  little 
trinket  would  seem  to  contain  an  epitome  of  the  history 
of  one  of  the  noblest  of  the  cavaliers. 

The  ugly  tale  of  Montrose's  murder  is  one  that 
blackens  the  roll  whereon  are  inscribed  the  names  of 
many  a  saintly  martyr  of  the  Covenant. 

But  if  there  were  bloodthirsty  fanatics  in  the  ranks 
of  the  Covenanters,  there  was  also  a  noble  army  of 
saints  who  perished  for  what  they  deemed  to  be 
the  sake  of  Him  who  bore  the  Cross. 

The  Restoration  of  Charles  n.  was  followed  by 
4  The  Killing  Time,'  when  the  Grassmarket  was  a 
shambles  where,  for  many  a  year,  there  flowed  an 
almost  constant  stream  of  the  blood  of  the  innocent. 
The  south  of  Scotland  became  a  school  for  martyrs. 
In  Galloway,  in  1666,  the  smouldering  wrath  of  the 
Scottish  peasantry  burst  into  the  flames  of  insurrection. 
Some  soldiers  were  ill-using  an  old  man,  accused  of 
nonconformity,  when  four  '  honest  men '  who  had 
come  from  their  hiding-places  among  the  mosses  of 
Galloway  to  seek  food  at  the  lonely  little  clachan  of 
Dairy,  came  to  the  rescue  and  shot  a  soldier.  There 
was  plenty  of  combustible  material  for  such  a  spark 
to  kindle.  The  skirmish  at  Rullion  Green  followed, 


354  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

then  Drumclog,  and  finally  Bothwell  Bridge.  They 
who  dared  in  those  fights  to  raise  arms  against  their 
anointed  King  paid  for  their  temerity  to  the  uttermost 
farthing.  They  who  had  the  boldness  to  repudiate 
the  services  of  the  Episcopal  curates  or  the  indulged 
clergy  fared  equally  badly.  Those  were  years  when 
religious  fervour  rose  to  wonderful  heights.  Men 
and  women,  noblemen  and  peasants;  went  to  the 
scaffold  with  a  kind  of  ecstasy  of  devotion.  One  has 
to  go  to  the  records  of  the  Reign  of  Terror  in  France 
if  one  wants  to  look  at  men  and  women  who  met 
what  was  meant  to  be  shameful  death  with  the  same 
magnificent  courage  and  fine  dignity  as  the  Scottish 
Covenanters.  Naturally  it  was  a  tune  when  supersti- 
tion claimed  her  own.  Men  dreamed  dreams  and  saw 
visions.  The  '  Prophet  Peden  '  (whose  '  Pulpit '  may 
yet  be  seen  on  the  summit  of  Ruberslaw),  a  gaunt 
figure,  whose  prophecies  of  evil  were  as  sure  as  a 
rifle-bullet,  was  feared  even  by  the  ungodly.  The 
Plague  hi  England  in  1665  was  regarded  as  an  ominous 
threat  from  Heaven  against  the  persecutors.  It 
broke  out  at  the  same  spot  in  London  where  a  '  globe 
of  fire '  had  been  previously  seen  to  suspend  itself, 
and  at  that  self-same  spot  it  was  that  the  Solemn 
League  and  Covenant  had  been  burned  by  the  public 
hangman.  In  Scotland  '  a  great  blazing  star  repre- 
senting the  shape  of  a  crab '  was  seen,  '  prodigious 
sign  of  great  troubles  in  Scotland.'  On  lonely  moors 


THE  COVENANTERS  355 

ready-made  graves  were  found,  some  in  groups  of 
fours  or  fives.  A  long-continued  snowstorm,  lasting 
from  December  till  the  middle  of  March,  was  another 
ominous  sign.  Each  comet  had  its  special  message. 
Drops  of  blood  were  found  where  no  blood  should  be, 
and  were  accepted  as  portent  of  coming  disaster.  On 
the  25th  of  May  1650,  on  Buccleuch's  property  on  the 
English  side,  '  for  the  space  of  three  miles,'  it  '  rained 
blood.'  The  months  of  snowstorm  were,  indeed, 
evil  months  for  those  whose  hiding-places  were  in 
caves  and  holes  in  moor  and  glen.  The  '  thirteen 
drifty  days '  of  1660  meant  such  disaster  to  the 
hunted  ones  that  for  that  alone  they  might  well  be 
remembered  in  the  Border.  But  to  the  practical  agri- 
cultural mind  of  the  Borderer  of  to-day,  the  '  Drifty 
Days  '  do  not  suggest  Covenanters,  but  Cheviot  sheep  ! 
So  many  sheep  then  perished,  it  is  affirmed,  that 
stock-raisers  were  thankful  to  breed  from  any  sheep 
that  came  to  hand.  Hence  the  origin  of  the  famous 
Cheviots. 

There  was,  however,  no  hardship  that  the  Covenan- 
ters dared  not  and  did  not  face.  Rothes,  His  Majesty's 
Commissioner,  wrote  of  them  despairingly — '  The  Bar- 
badoes  does  not  in  the  least  terrify  them,  dam'd 
ffuls.' 

There  were  twenty-eight  Teviotdale  men  in  the 
ship  Crown,  loaded  with  slaves  for  the  plantations, 
that  was  wrecked  off  the  Orkneys  on  its  way  from 


356  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Leith.  The  prisoners  were  kept  under  the  hatches 
until  the  vessel  broke  up,  and  two  hundred  out  of 
two  hundred  and  fifty-seven  perished  like  rats  in  a 
trap.  Of  the  men  from  Teviotdale  only  six  escaped. 

Those  who  attended  conventicles  took  their  lives 
in  their  hands,  yet  the  risks  they  ran  led  to  no  diminu- 
tion in  the  numbers  who  came  to  be  ministered  to  by 
their  hunted  pastors  on  lonely  moors  or  desolate 
fastnesses  of  the  hills.  Many  a  time  have  the  fervid 
prayers  of  the  preachers  been  interrupted  by  the 
sight  of  the  red  coats  and  cantering  horses  of  dragoons 
who  came  to  slay  without  trial  or  to  drag  off  to  torture 
or  banishment  the  gallant  little  flocks  of  those  whose 
dogged  loyalty  to  their  beliefs  kept  them  faithful 
unto  death.  Little  wonder  is  it  that  that  psalm  whose 
mournful  wail  still  has  the  power  to  recall  the  hard- 
ships of  the  hunted  hill-folk  who  met  by  stealth  to 
praise  God  in  the  way  they  deemed  the  best,  should 
bear  the  significant  title  of  '  Martyrdom.'  It  is  not 
long  since  the  Lowland  herds  were  wont  to  stamp  on 
the  nests  and  clutches  of  pewits'  eggs  when  they 
found  them  on  the  moors,  as  a  traditionary  revenge 
on  the  birds  whose  excited  wheeling  and  mournful 
cries  many  times  betrayed  to  the  dragoons  the  hiding- 
places  of  the  Covenanters. 

There  was  no  lack  of  spies  upon  the  conventicle 
holders.  At  Yarrow,  John  Bremner,  of  evil  memory, 
the  Episcopal  curate  in  charge,  was  wont  to  furnish 


THE  COVENANTERS  357 

the  Government  with  news  of  conventicles  about 
to  be  held  by  his  parishioners.  A  certain  ;  strange, 
gaunt  woman '  acted  as  his  familiar  and  provided 
him  with  the  means  for  betrayal.  At  his  door 
lay  guilt  for  many  a  death  in  Yarrow,  when  a 
Covenanting  bullet  sent  through  his  parlour  window 
put  an  end  to  his  treacherous  career.  There  were 
delicate  distinctions  drawn  by  the  godly  of  those  days 
between  bloody  murder  and  righteous  execution. 
Mass  John  Bremner  and  Archbishop  Sharpe  were 
enemies  of  the  Covenant,  and  to  neither  could  quarter 
be  given. 

'  As  for  this  Cardinal,  I  grant, 
He  was  the  Man  we  well  might  want, 
God  will  forgive  it  soon  : 
But  of  a  Truth,  the  Sooth  to  say, 
Altho'  the  Loun  be  well  away, 
The  Fact  was  foully  done.' 

A  religious  warfare  is  ever  the  most  bitter  of  all 
wars,  and  the  tales  of  the  misdeeds  of  King's  men  and 
of  Covenanters,  as  chronicled  by  rabid  contemporary 
partisans,  makes  but  sorry  reading.  Hard  indeed  it 
is  to  sift  the  tales  to  the  bottom,  yet  on  both  sides 
there  is  quite  sufficient  unassailable  evidence  of 
fierce  revenge  and  of  bloody  cruelties.  Were  we  to 
take  the  Covenanting  view  alone,  there  was  barely  a 
man  who  held  sacred  office  in  the  Church  approved  by 
Monarchy  who  was  not  a  lewd  fellow  of  the  baser  sort. 

4  Mr.  George  Wiseheart,'    writes   Wodrow,  was  in 


358  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

1661  given  the  see  of  Edinburgh.  '  He  had  been 
laid  under  Church  Censure  by  the  old  Covenanters, 
about  the  time  of  the  encampment  at  Duns  Law, 
and  this  probably  recommended  him  now.  This 
man  could  not  refrain  from  profane  Swearing,  even 
upon  the  street  of  Edinburgh,  and  he  was  a  known 
Drunkard.  He  published  somewhat  in  Divinity ; 
but  then,  as  I  find  it  remarked  by  a  very  good  Hand, 
his  lascivious  Poems,  which  compared  with  the 
most  luscious  Parts  of  Ovid,  de  Arte  Amandi,  are 
modest,  gave  Scandal  to  all  the  world.' 

At  Ancrum,  the  picturesque  little  village  near 
Jedburgh,  the  people  had  been  privileged  to  '  sit 
under  '  the  godly  John  Livingstone,  until  his  noncon- 
formity drove  him  into  exile.  His  successor,  appointed 
by  the  ruling  powers,  was  a  certain  Mr.  James  Scott, 
once  excommunicated  for  misdemeanour,  and  still 
remaining  under  that  sentence.  According  to  the 
opponents  of  Episcopacy,  his  future  flock  had  abun- 
dant moral  grounds  for  objecting  to  have  him  as  their 
spiritual  guide.  On  the  day  he  came  to  preach  his 
first  sermon  in  Ancrum  parish,  the  bolder  of  his 
parishioners  greeted  him  with  words  that  were  far 
from  being  a  welcome.  One  woman,  Turnbull  by 
name,  plucked  at  his  cloak  and  begged  him  to  listen 
to  the  reasonableness  of  their  objections.  Too  much 
was  this  for  Mr.  Scott,  who  promptly  smote  his  forward 
parishioner  with  the  cane  he  carried.  This  was  the 


THE  COVENANTERS  359 

signal  for  some  boys  to  throw  stones  (it  may  have 
been  almost  unfortunate  that  their  ami  was  bad)  at 
the  new  curate,  and  a  pretty  story  indeed  it  was 
that  he  had  to  tell  to  the  High  Commission  Court. 
The  sheriff  and  justices  laid  hold  on  the  malcontents, 
fined  and  imprisoned  them.  This  was,  however,  too 
lenient  a  punishment  for  the  boys  who  had  thrown 
stones.  At  the  Cross  of  Edinburgh  four  of  them  were 
branded  on  the  forehead  with  a  hot  iron ;  they 
were  then  scourged  through  the  streets,  and  thereafter 
shipped  to  the  Barbadoes.  The  woman  who  had  been 
the  unhappy  cause  of  the  disturbance  was  whipped 
through  Jedburgh,  while  her  two  brothers  were 
banished  to  Virginia. 

Such  was  the  Jethart  Justice  of  Covenanting  times. 

Probably  a  good  deal  of  the  Covenanting  zeal  to  be 
found  amongst  various  of  the  reiver  families  was  due 
to  the  ministrations  of  the  godly  Richard  Cameron. 
While  still  a  youth  he  was  tutor  and  chaplain  in  the 
family  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  of  Harden,  who  attended 
the  ministrations  of  one  of  the  indulged  Presbyterians. 
To  Cameron  this  savoured  too  much  of  bowing  down 
in  the  House  of  Rimmon.  Apparently  he  remon- 
strated, and  his  office  at  once  became  vacant.  There- 
after he  was  licensed  as  a  preacher  by  Mr.  John  Welsh 
and  Mr.  Gabriel  Sempill,  two  eminent  men  of  the 
Covenant,  in  the  house  of  Henry  Hall  of  Haughhead, 
a  famous  Border  Covenanter,  in  the  Northumbrian 


360  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

village  of  Haselridge  where  he  and  many  another 
hunted  man  had  found  sanctuary.  Being  licensed,  the 
youth  was  commissioned  to  go  to  preach  in  Annandale. 

4  He  said,  how  could  he  go  there  ?  He  knew  not 
what  sort  of  people  they  were.  But  Mr.  Welch  said, 
Go  your  way,  Ritchie,  and  set  the  fire  of  hell  to 
their  tails.'  Nor  did  '  Ritchie '  shrink  from  this 
amiable  task.  .The  first  day  he  preached  to  the 
Annandale  men  his  text  was — ''How  shall  I  put  thee 
among  the  children  ?  '  In  the  application  he  said  '  Put 
you  among  the  children !  the  offspring  of  robbers  and 
thieves  !  Many  have  heard  of  the  Annandale  thieves.' 

Probably  the  men  of  the  Marches  liked  strength  and 
fearlessness  in  spiritual  exhortation  as  in  all  other 
things,  for  we  are  told  that  '  some  of  them  got  a 
merciful  cast  that  day.'  When  Richard  Cameron 
met  his  martyr's  death  on  the  bleak  moor  of  Ayrsmoss, 
the  man  who  cut  off  his  hands  and  head  took  them 
to  show  to  the  Privy  Council  ere  they  were  fixed 
upon  the  Netherbow.  '  There  's  the  head  and  the 
hands  that  lived  praying  and  preaching,  and  died 
praying  and  fighting,'  said  he,  as  he  threw  down  the  fair 
head  of  him  whom  his  elders  always  knew  as  '  Ritchie,' 
and  who  was  then  little  over  thirty  years  of  age. 

On  the  Harden  family  Richard  Cameron's  influ- 
ence was  scarcely  for  the  advantage  of  their  pockets. 
In  1662  the  Lady  of  Harden  would  not  comply  with 
the  State's  religious  regulations,  and  a  fine  of  £18,000 


THE  COVENANTERS  361 

Scots  was  inflicted  upon  her  husband.  Cameron  died 
for  his  convictions  in  1680,  and  three  years  later  we 
find  Sir  Walter  Scott  himself,  then  a  man  of  nearly 
seventy,  imprisoned  in  the  Tolbooth  for  refusing  to 
pay  a  fine.  The  fine  at  that  time  demanded  was 
£46,125  Scots,  and  the  old  chief  complained  that  not 
only  was  he  unable  to  pay  this  sum,  but  that  im- 
prisonment was  affecting  his  health,  and  begged 
for  some  remission.  The  reply  he  received  was  that 
he  was  removed  from  the  Tolbooth  to  Edinburgh 
Castle  that  his  health  might  benefit  by  a  change  of 
air,  while  his  fine  was  reduced  to  £1500  sterling.  His 
freedom,  when  at  length  he  obtained  it,  apparently 
was  of  short  duration,  for  in  May  1684  we  again 
find  him  in  prison,  this  time  in  the  Tolbooth  of  Jed- 
burgh,  for  refusing  to  pay  a  fine  of  £2944,  8s.  10d., 
while  his  son  was  sentenced  to  pay  £3500  for  his  con- 
science' sake.  Once  again  Harden  petitioned  for 
some  remission,  with  the  result  that  he  was  promptly 
made  to  exchange  his  county  gaol  for  the  Edinburgh 
Tolbooth.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  half  of 
his  fine  went  into  the  pocket  of  '  Bluidy '  Mackenzie. 
Being  only  a  passive  resister,  Harden,  after  all, 
fared  better  at  the  hands  of  the  Government  than  did 
some  of  his  neighbours,  whose  defiance  took  a  more 
active  form.  Mr.  Henry  Erskine,  son  of  Ralph 
Erskine  of  Shielfield,  was  minister  of  Cornhill,  but 
•was  ejected  from  his  living  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity. 


362  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

He  came  to  live  with  his  brother  at  Dryburgh,  and 
continued  to  preach  the  Gospel  in  the  forbidden  way, 
sometimes  in  the  house,  sometimes  in  the  fields  or 
woods  by  the  Tweed.  One  Sunday  in  April  1682 
he  was  seized  while  at  family  worship  and  haled  off 
to  Melrose.  From  gaol  in  Melrose  to  gaol  in  Jedburgh, 
from  Jedburgh  to  Edinburgh,  he  was  taken — a  gentle, 
musical,  benevolent,  Christian  gentleman,  who  played 
with  much  taste  on  the  cithern,  or  great  lute,  in  days 
before  his  hands  were  mauled  with  thumbscrews. 
Finally  he  was  condemned  to  the  Bass,  but  his  state 
of  health  was  so  precarious  that  his  friends  petitioned 
to  be  allowed  to  pay  a  heavy  fine  that  he  might  go 
free.  After  many  a  vicissitude  the  Rev.  Henry 
Erskine  reached  calm  water  at  last,  and  the  closing 
years  of  his  life  were  full  of  happiness  and  peace.  He 
died  as  minister  of  Chirnside,  and  the  beloved  of  his 
people,  at  the  age  of  seventy-two. 

Lady  Douglas  of  Cavers  was  also  among  the 
sufferers.  She  and  her  husband  refused  to  give  up 
the  keys  of  Cavers  Church  when  the  newly  appointed 
curate  came  to  demand  them,  and  apparently  they 
took  no  steps  to  check  their  people  when  they  stoned 
their  new  pastor  in  the  graveyard.  Douglas  of 
Cavers  was  outlawed,  and,  on  his  death,  his  widow 
steadily  refused  to  allow  her  children  to  be  brought 
up  as  Episcopalians.  Her  eldest  son  was  forcibly 
taken  from  her  and  placed  under  tutors  appointed 


THE  COVENANTERS  363 

by  the  Privy  Council,  and,  in  later  days,  was  able  to 
save  his  mother  from  some  of  the  hardships  she  would 
otherwise  have  had  to  undergo  for  the  sake  of  her 
principles.  As  it  was,  *  the  gude  leddie  of  Cavers,' 
which  still  remains  her  title,  went  through  hardships 
enough.  She  was  known  to  befriend  and  to  shelter 
ministers  who  were  '  wanted,'  and  to  be  a  zealous 
attender  of  conventicles,  and  was  fined  £500  sterling, 
a  sum  exceeding  three  years'  rent  of  the  Cavers 
estate.  Peden's  Pulpit  and  Hagburn,  one  on  the 
summit  and  the  other  on  the  eastern  slope  of 
Ruberslaw,  Peden's  Vale,  Denholm  Dean,  and  the 
Little  Dean,  were  all  within  easy  reach  of  Cavers, 
and  all  of  them  were  well-known  meeting-places. 
Consequently  it  was  advisable  to  place  the  good  lady 
out  of  the  reach  of  temptation,  and  for  two  years  she 
was  imprisoned  in  Stirling  Castle,  only  being  allowed 
out  for  a  few  weeks  at  the  request  of  her  eldest  son 
(who  had  been  educated  in  such  a  way  as  to  win  him 
the  royal  favour)  *  to  go  to  some  wells  for  her  health.' 
Having  done  her  cure,  she  returned  to  prison  in  Stirling 
and  there  remained,  until  sentence  of  banishment 
brought  her  prison  life  to  a  close. 

Lilliesleaf  Moor  was  the  most  used  conventicle 
ground  in  the  Border  counties,  and  various  happenings 
there  led  more  than  one  good  man  and  true  into  the 
way  of  martyrdom.  After  Drumclog,  the  Covenanters 
of  Merse  and  Teviotdale  resolved  to  march  to  the  help 


364  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

of  their  brethren  in  the  West.  Lilliesleaf  Moor, 
not  too  far  from  the  Merse,  handy  for  Teviotdale, 
nearly  equally  handy  for  Tweeddale  and  Ettrick 
and  Yarrow,  was  the  spot  they  chose  as  rendezvous, 
and  on  June  6,  1679,  three  hundred  armed  men 
met  there.  Two  Border  lairds,  Turnbull  of  Sharplaw 
and  Riddell  of  Newhouse,  neither  of  them  of  the 
Covenanted,  were  met  riding  between  Lilliesleaf  and 
Holydean  that  morning  by  a  detachment  of  Covenan- 
ters from  the  Lothians.  There  was  too  great  a  chance 
of  their  having  come  from  spying  on  the  Covenanting 
force,  and  they  were  turned  and  brought  to  the  moor 
as  prisoners  of  war.  Those  Lothian  men  were  evi- 
dently old  campaigners,  for  as  they  passed  Lindean 
they  commandeered  two  horses  for  the  army's  use, 
and  when  it  was  safe  for  Turnbull  and  Riddell  to  be 
allowed  to  go  home,  they  took  their  horses  from  them, 
and  sent  them  off  on  foot.  To  the  prisoners,  whose 
evidence  afterwards  was  used  against  their  captors, 
we  owe  a  description  of  the  little  army.  It  was  too 
good  a  chance,  of  course,  not  to  have  a  preaching, 
and  while  the  Rev.  David  Williamson  preached  to  the 
larger  part  of  the  force,  an  armed  guard  patrolled 
the  ground.  When  service  was  over,  the  troops, 
who  carried  a  drum  and  a  pair  of  colours,  exercised 
on  the  moor,  while  their  commanding  officer,  Turnbull 
of  Standhill,  held  a  council  of  war  with  his  staff— 
Turnbull  of  Bewlie,  Alexander  Hume  of  Hume,  and 


THE  COVENANTERS  365 

other  doughty  representatives  of  reiving  families. 
Most  of  the  officers  wore  long  grey  riding-cloaks, 
innocent  enough  garments,  indeed,  but  as  they  walked 
the  ends  of  swords  glinted  in  the  sun.  The  council 
of  war  ended,  each  officer  rode  off  with  his  own  little 
following  of  horse  and  foot  to  carry  the  fiery  cross 
round  the  Border  in  as  many  directions  as  possible. 
The  Lothian  men  went  to  Melrose,  Turnbull  of 
Bewlie's  troop  to  Kelso.  Next  morning  the  entire 
force  assembled  again  at  Hawick,  and  from  then 
until  Sunday  night  they  besieged  Hawick  Castle. 
The  colours  and  arms  of  the  disbanded  local  militia 
were  stored  there,  and  made  it  a  valuable  prize  for 
the  badly  armed  troops.  With  only  one  man  of  them 
wounded  —  Mr.  John  Purden,  schoolmaster  —  the 
defenders  capitulated  on  Sunday  evening,  and  handed 
over  to  the  besiegers  what  they  sought.  While  the 
siege  of  Hawick  went  on,  those  of  the  army  whose 
services  were  not  required  held  a  second  conventicle 
at  Lilliesleaf  Moor,  and  from  Lilliesleaf,  on  Monday, 
Mr.  Alexander  Hume  of  Hume  took  his  way  home- 
wards. He  was  mounted  on  a  bright  bay  horse,  and 
wore  a  black  velvet  riding-cap  and  dark  cloak,  lined 
and  faced  with  royal  red  —  a  gallant  figure,  this 
kinsman  of  the  Earl.  One  servant  only  accompanied 
him,  but  a  troop  followed  at  some  distance  behind, 
along  the  wooded  banks  of  Tweed  to  the  house  of 
Makerstoun.  In  a  park  on  the  Makerstoun  estate 


366  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

the  troops  called  a  halt,  lit  fires  to  cook  their  supper, 
shod  their  horses,  and  otherwise  employed  themselves, 
while  Hume  rode  up  to  the  house  to  interview  the 
proprietor,  Sir  Henry  MacDougall.  But  news  of  the 
siege  of  Hawick  had  reached  Makerstoun,  and  the 
gates  were  barricaded.  Nevertheless,  Hume  tried 
his  persuasive  eloquence  on  the  laird,  and  besought 
him  '  to  surrender  to  the  good  cause  and  join  it  while 
there  was  time.'  While  he  spoke,  a  messenger  posted 
up  with  the  news  that  Hawick  Castle  was  taken,  but 
it  was  news  that  had  no  effect  upon  Sir  Henry,  who 
told  Hume  that  anyhow  there  was  no  fear  of  the 
Covenanters  being  able  to  take  Makerstoun.  Obvi- 
ously he  had  no  wish  to  join  the  '  good  cause,'  so 
Hume  gave  up  his  attempts  at  persuasion  and  de- 
scended to  a  mere  question  of  horse-couping.  He 
evidently  had  a  fancy  for  bay  horses ;  perhaps  he 
wished  his  second  charger  to  be  a  good  match  for  his 
first.  At  all  events,  he  asked  Sir  Henry  to  sell  him  a 
bay  horse  that  he  knew  was  owned  by  the  young  laird 
of  Makerstoun.  But  Sir  Henry  was  a  stout  King's  man 
and  had  no  dealings  with  rebels.  He  would  not  even 
sell  a  horse  to  Hume,  and  told  him  so.  Thereupon 
Hume,  seeing  that  there  was  nothing  to  be  gained  for  his 
cause  by  remaining,  collected  his  men  and  rode  away. 
Turnbull  of  Bewlie,  who  with  his  troop  had  ridden 
to  Eccles,  was  less  pacific  in  his  methods.  The 
minister  of  Eccles  was  a  noted  enemy  of  the  Covenan- 


THE  COVENANTERS  367 

ters,  and  therefore  fair  prey,  and  he  was  the  poorer 
by  two  horses  and  four  saddles  when  those  godly 
reivers  left  the  manse.  Less  than  a  year  earlier, 
TurnbulPs  brother,  along  with  '  Thomas  Wauch, 
merchant  in  Hawick,5  and  Margaret  Barclay,  also 
of  that  town,  had  been  convicted  of  being  present 
at  house  and  field  conventicles  and  banished  to  the 
plantations,  so  that  Walter  Turnbull  of  Bewlie  must 
have  felt  bitter  against  informers,  ministerial  or 
otherwise.  It  was,  however,  on  Hume  that  the  arm 
of  the  law  descended  in  heavy  chastisement.  That 
unfortunate  call  of  his  at  Makerstoun  was  a  sufficiently 
large  serpent's  egg  to  be  hatched  by  the  Lord  Advocate 
('  Bluidy  Mackenzie  }),  well  prompted  by  others  who 
fancied  Hume's  was  a  neck  that  was  safer  with  a  rope 
tight  around  it.  For  long  they  vainly  hunted  him, 
for  he  had  cunning  hiding-places — the  secret  room 
at  the  Tower  of  Greenknow  in  Berwickshire,  where 
lived  his  connections,  the  Pringles,  at  Bassendean, 
and  at  Falside,  both  near  Gordon.  When  they  found 
him  at  last  he  made  a  stout  resistance  and  was  severely 
wounded  ere  he  was  taken.  This  is  his  indictment— 
'  That  in  June  1679  he  rose  in  rebellion  ;  he  came 
to  the  house  of  Sir  Henry  M'Doual  of  Mackerstoun, 
besieged  it  and  called  for  Horse  and  Arms  ;  and  being 
bolted  out,  came  armed  to  Kelso,  Selkirk,  and  Hawick, 
and  searched  and  sought  for  horses  and  armour, 
and  carried  awav  Militia  Colours,  drums,  etc.,  and 


368  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

wounded  Mr.  John  Purden,  schoolmaster  at  Hawick, 
and  did  resist  His  Majesty's  Forces  at  Bewly  Bridge, 
under  the  command  of  the  Master  of  Ross,  and  marched 
forward  to  Bothwell  Bridge.'  None  of  these  charges 
were  proven.  It  was  proved,  indeed,  that  Hume 
carried  out  the  siege  of  Makerstoun  with  the  aid  of 
one  man-servant  only,  and  that  no  violence  was  ever 
suggested.  There  was,  however,  no  escape  for  Mr. 
Alexander  Hume,  who  was  much  too  deeply  involved 
in  the  military  proceedings  of  the  malignants  to  be 
allowed  to  be  at  large. 

In  1682 — the  same  year  that  '  Bluidy  Mackenzie  ' 
was  conferring  a  benefit  on  all  posterity  by  founding 
the  Advocate's  Library — this  Whig,  whom  the  Lord 
Advocate  had  successfully  harried  to  the  gibbet, 
paid  the  penalty  of  being  loyal  to  his  cause.  On  the 
afternoon  of  the  29th  of  December,  at  the  Market 
Cross  of  Edinburgh,  Alexander  Hume  sang  the  last 
verse  of  the  seventeenth  Psalm  with  the  rope  round 
his  neck,  and  then  met  his  shameful  death  like  a  man. 
Mr.  Wodrow,  most  intemperate  of  partisans,  has  it 
that  Hume's  wife  went  to  the  Countess  of  Perth  and 
begged  her  to  intercede  for  her  husband  with  the 
Earl  of  Perth,  for  the  sake  of  five  small  Humes  who 
were  not  yet  fit  to  do  battle  with  the  world.  The 
reply  of  the  Countess  Mr.  Wodrow  declares  to  be 
unpublishable.  He  also  declares  that  influential 
friends  in  London  got  Hume's  sentence  remitted,  and 


THE  COVENANTERS  869 

that  the  remission  actually  reached  Edinburgh  some 
days  before  his  execution,  but  was  kept  back  by  the 
Earl  of  Perth.  Such  a  dashing  Covenanter  as  Alex- 
ander Hume,  cousin  of  an  Earl,  who  pursued  his 
missions  on  the  Border  on  a  bright  bay  horse,  and 
wore  a  cloak  lined  and  faced  with  royal  red,  was 
certainly  a  danger  to  the  community. 

4  Fight  for  the  bishops,  says  a  priest,  with  his  gown 
and  rochet. — Stand  stout  for  the  Kirk,  cries  a  minister, 
in  a  Geneva  cap  and  band. — Good  watchwords  all — 
excellent  watchwords.  Whilk  cause  is  the  best  I 
cannot  say.'  So  spoke  Captain  Dugald  Dalgetty; 
and  to  such  soldiers  of  fortune  as  he,  ever  ready  to 
sell  their  swords  to  the  highest  bidder,  a  cavalier  like 
Hume — no  '  snivelling  Whig  psalm-singer  '  he — must 
have  proved  a  dangerously  attractive  recruiting 
sergeant  in  the  eyes  of  the  Covenanters'  enemies. 

While  Hume  and  the  Turnbulls  were  recruiting  on 
the  Border,  Melrose  was  their  headquarters.  The 
grey  walls  of  the  Abbey  echoed  to  the  sounds  of  bugle 
and  of  drum ;  troops  of  horse  daily  clattered  past 
the  old  town  cross.  On  the  10th  of  June,  their 
commandant,  Turnbull  of  Standhill,  apparently  de- 
cided that  it  was  time  to  make  a  move  for  the  west. 
No  unskilled  general  was  he,  and  he  timed  his  march 
from  Melrose  just  as  two  troops  of  the  royal  horse 
under  a  '  Captain  Bukame '  were  sent  out  to  deal 
with  the  rebels.  At  Bewlie  Bog  these  troops  encoun- 


370  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

tered — they  may  probably  have  thought  accidentally 
— a  small  party  of  Covenanters,  decoy  ducks  sent 
from  Melrose  by  Standhill.  There  was  a  hot  fight, 
and  it  went  hard  with  StandhilPs  men.  Many  were 
seriously  wounded,  some  were  killed  on  the  spot ; 
others  were  driven  back  into  the  moss,  where  reeds 
and  rushes  and  cottongrass  covered  a  treacherous 
quagmire  whose  black  mud  quickly  engulfed  them ; 
some  were  carried  off  the  field  to  die.  Yet  the  sur- 
vivors carried  out  the  devised  strategy,  and  it  was 
only  after  Bukame  and  his  troopers  had  wasted 
hours  in  hunting  the  fugitives  across  the  rough 
country  round  the  slope  of  the  Eildons  and  up  the 
side  of  the  Tweed  to  Galashiels,  that  they  realised 
that  the  heroic  little  band  of  Covenanting  Borderers 
had  used  the  ruse  of  the  pewits  on  the  moors  to  lure 
disturbers  away  from  their  nests  and  young,  and  that 
while  they  were  foundering  their  horses  in  vain 
pursuit,  the  main  body  of  the  Covenanting  troops  had 
safelv  eluded  them. 

• 

To  the  hunted  it  was  not  possible  that  the  hunters 
should  appear  to  be  anything  but  sinful  and  bloody 
men.  Six  thousand  Highlanders  had  been  brought 
down  from  the  north  to  help  to  quell  the  rebellion, 
and  the  caterans  were  not  slow  to  help  themselves 
to  the  rebel's  possessions  every  time  the  chance 
offered  itself.  Bloodshed  was  to  them  a  trifling 
matter  when  they  were  not  dealing  with  questions 


THE  COVENANTERS  371 

of  clan  feuds,  and  they  and  the  other  redcoats  hunted 
the  Whigs  with  a  will. 

'  Troth  when  they  fand  them,  they  didna  use  muckle 
mair  ceremony  than  a  Hielandman  wi'  a  roebuck. — It 
was  just,  "Will  ye  tak  the  test?"— if  not,  "Make 
ready — present — fire  !  " — and  there  lay  the  recusant.' 

It  is  not  so  many  years  since  an  old  woman  up 
Yarrow  was  having  a  '  lesson '  from  the  Book  of 
Revelation  read  to  her  by  her  little  granddaughter. 

'  And  there  appeared  another  wonder  in  Heaven,' 
read  the  child,  '  and  behold  a  great  red  dragoon  '  .  .  . 

'  Hoots,  lassie  !  it 's  no'  a  dragoon,'  said  the  grand- 
mother. 

The  child  persisted. 

*  Gie  's  the  Book,  an'  rax  me  by  my  specs,'  said  the 
old  lady.  '  D-R-A,  dra,  G-O-N,  goon.  Ye  're  richt  an' 
ah  'm  wrang.  Read  on.' , 

6  And  the  great  dragoon  was  cast  out,'  proceeded 
the  child. 

Triumphantly  spoke  the  grandmother :  *  I  kent 
that  wad  be  the  upshot  o  't !  It 's  the  wunner  tae  me 
hoo  he  ever  wan  in  ! ' 

Chief  of  all  those  c  red  dragoons '  whose  rightful 
home  was  the  nether  regions,  was  the  '  Bloody 
Claverse '  himself.  As  one  looks  at  the  fair  face  of 
that  most  loyal  and  fearless  of  cavaliers,  it  is  hard  to 
believe  in  the  tales  of  his  merciless  cruelty.  But 
Claverhouse  was  a  true  servant  of  the  King,  and  so  that 


372  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

the  King  were  perfectly  served,  it  mattered  but  little 
to  him  how  many  dead  bodies  had  to  form  a  causeway 
for  the  safe  passage  of  the  royal  chariot  wheels.  To 
the  superstitious  minds  of  the  Scottish  peasants  he 
was  no  less  than  Lucifer  incarnate,  while  the  black 
charger  that  he  usually  rode  was  one  of  the  Devil's 
own.  Near  the  head  of  Moffat  Water,  upon  the  Bran 
Law  —  a  precipice  where  neither  earthly  horse  nor 
mortal  rider  could  achieve  such  a  feat,  Claverhouse 
and  his  black  horse  are  said  to  have  coursed  and 
turned  a  hare.  Not  far  from  the  same  spot,  at  the 
Stey  Gail  (or  Steep  Gable),  a  precipice  in  the  Lowthers, 
a  similar  tale  is  told  of  another  of  the  fiends  of  the 
Persecution,  Grierson  of  Lagg,  who  '  once  rode  at 
full  gallop  along  its  slope  after  a  fox.'  '  No  canny 
man  or  horse,'  says  Dr.  John  Brown,  '  could  do  this 
and  live.' 

The  Enterkin,  an  eerie  glen  in  the  same  district,  is 
the  scene  of  a  blood-stirring  adventure  in  the  Killing 
Times. 

A  party  of  twenty-eight  soldiers  were  marching, 
two  and  two,  up  the  narrow  path,  the  abyss  with  its 
'  dismal  bottom  '  on  the  right.  With  them  they  had 
some  sixteen  prisoners,  one  of  them  a  minister,  on  their 
way  to  c  glorify  God  at  the  Grassmarket,'  as  his  Grace 
of  Lauderdale  aptly  put  it.  Suddenly,  out  of  the 
mist  on  the  hilltop,  high  above  them,  came  a  man's 
voice,  calling  loudly.  The  procession  halted. 


THE  COVENANTERS  373 

'  What  d?  ye  want,  and  who  are  ye  ? '  called  the 
commanding  officer. 

Thereat  came  out  of  the  mist  and  stood  on  the 
hillside,  twelve  men. 

*  What  are  ye  ?  '  again  called  the  officer.     '  Stand  !  ' 

To  which  came  the  reply  of  the  leader  of  the  men 
above,  c  Make  ready  !  ' 

To  the  dragoon  officer  on  the  narrow  path  below  he 
then  called,  '  Sir,  will  ye  deliver  our  minister  ?  ' 

With  an  oath  the  dragoon  shouted  back, '  No,  sir,  an 
ye  were  to  be  damned  !  ' 

A  shot  from  the  Covenanting  leader  ended  the 
parley.  It  was  aimed  truly.  The  officer  fell  from 
his  horse,  shot  through  the  head.  The  horse  reared, 
swayed,  and  crashed  down  the  precipice,  rolling  over 
and  over,  and  arriving  a  crushed  and  mangled 
mass  of  dead  flesh  in  the  glen  far  below.  The 
twelve  men  on  the  hill  had  prepared  to  fire  a  volley 
when  the  officer  next  in  command  called  for  a  parley. 
That  mangled  mass  of  bones  and  blood  beneath  them 
sickened  the  soldiers.  *  Not  a  man  of  them  durst  stir 
a  foot  or  offer  to  fire  a  shot.'  It  was  the  last  drop 
in  their  cup  of  dread,  when  two  scouts  returned  to 
tell  them  that  at  the  top  of  the  hill  in  front  there 
awaited  them  yet  another  body  of  armed  men. 
The  dragoon  officer  called  to  the  foe  above  enquiring 
what  they  would  have. 

'  Deliver  our  minister,'  was  the  reply. 


374  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

4  Well,  sir,'  said  the  dragoon,  '  ye  'se  get  your 
minister,  an  ye  will  forbear  firing.' 

'  Indeed  we  '11  forbear,'  called  the  leader  of  the 
enemy.  'We  desire  to  hurt  none  of  ye;  but,  sir, 
belike  ye  have  more  prisoners  ?  ' 

4  Indeed  have  we,'  said  the  officer. 

*  An'  ye  maun  deliver  them  all,'  said  the  Covenanter. 
4  Well,  ye  shall  have  them,  then,'  said  the  dragoon. 

*  Bring  forward  the  minister.' 

So  the  minister's  bonds  were  cut,  and  he  climbed 
up  the  rocky  hillside  and  joined  his  deliverers. 

*  You  owe  your  life  to  this  damned  mountain,' 
said  the  officer  as  he  set  him  free. 

4  Rather,  sir,'  said  the  minister,  *  to  that  God  that 
made  this  mountain.' 

When  the  minister  had  safely  reached  his  friends, 
the  leader  called  to  the  dragoons  to  deliver  the  other 
prisoners,  and  they,  too,  were  allowed  to  climb  the 
hillside.  The  officer,  feeling  then  that  his  part  of  the 
bargain  had  been  handsomely  fulfilled,  called  to  the 
Covenanters  to  withdraw  the  men  posted  at  the  head 
of  the  pass. 

4  They  belong  not  to  us,'  was  the  reply.  4  They  are 
unarmed  people  waiting  till  you  pass  by.' 

4  Say  you  so  ?  '  said  the  officer.  4  Had  I  known 
that,  you  had  not  gotten  your  men  so  cheap,  or 
come  off  so  free  ! ' 

4  Are  ye  for  battle,  sir  ?  '  asked  the  gallant  soldier 


THE  COVENANTERS  375 

of  the  Covenant.  '  We  are  ready  for  you  still.  If 
you  think  you  are  able  for  us,  ye  may  try  your  hands. 
We  quit  the  truce  if  you  like.' 

*  No,9  said  the  officer — and  Defoe,  who  tells  the  tale, 
puts  the  refusal  in  italics — '  I  think  ye  be  brave 
fellows.  E'en  gang  your  gait.' 

There  were  many  heroes  and  heroines  in  those  days 
— men  who  wore  the  boot  and  the  thumbscrew,  and 
who  suffered  the  utmost  tortures  that  human  flesh 
could  bear  ere  they  wore  the  halter  in  the  Grass- 
market  or  by  the  Town  Cross  of  Edinburgh  ;  women 
whose  fingers  were  charred  to  the  bone  by  lighted 
matches  tied  between  them,  and  who  yet  did  not  allow 
the  weakness  of  the  flesh  to  overcome  their  own  daunt- 
less loyalty  to  those  they  loved,  and  to  the  faith  to 
which  all  their  hopes  of  future  happiness  were  pinned. 
There  were  heroes  and  heroines,  too,  whose  years 
were  so  few  that  one  is  ready  to  hate  those  '  red 
dragoons '  who  inflicted  on  them  pains  and  terrors 
before  which  even  the  soldiers  who  bestrode  the 
'  wooden  horse  '  in  those  hardening  times  might  have 
flinched  and  played  the  renegade. 

On  the  Border  there  is  a  child  who  still  remains  a 
heroine  to  old  and  young — Grisell  Hume  of  Polwarth. 
She  was  the  daughter  of  Sir  Patrick  Hume  of  Pol- 
warth, held  to  be  an  enemy  of  the  Government. 
Early  in  her  girlhood  Grisell  Hume  became  used  to 
the  absence  of  a  father  whose  return  to  his  own  estate 


376  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

in  Berwickshire  meant  death.  She  was  twelve  years 
of  age  when  her  father  used  her  as  the  bearer  of  a 
message  from  him  to  his  friend,  Baillie  of  Jerviswoode, 
then  a  prisoner  in  Edinburgh  Tolbooth,  and  there  it 
was  that  she  first  met  Jerviswoode's  eldest  son,  George 
Baillie,  whose  happy  wife  she  became  thirteen  years 
later.  Then  came  a  tune  when  Hume  of  Polwarth 
was  in  hiding  in  his  own  domains.  In  a  vault  beneath 
Polwarth  Church  Sir  Patrick  Hume  lay  hidden. 
A  black  walnut  folding-bed,  exactly  underneath  the 
pulpit  from  which  the  minister  of  Polwarth  preached 
every  Sunday,  was  his  at  night.  By  day  he  passed 
his  time  in  reading  Buchanan's  Latin  version  of  the 
Psalms  and  in  watching  the  sun's  rays  that  thrust 
themselves  through  the  bars  that  protected  the 
gloomy  sepulchre  of  his  ancestors.  For  a  month  he 
lay  here,  his  hiding-place  known  only  to  his  wife,  his 
daughter  Grisell,  and  to  Jamie  Winter,  a  carpenter 
on  the  estate.  There  is  a  walk  now,  through  an  open 
glen,  by  the  Swindon  Burn,  called  the  Lady's  Walk. 
Lime-trees  grow  on  either  side  of  it,  and  at  the  end 
lies  Polwarth  Church.  By  this  path  Grisell  used  to 
go  at  dead  of  night  to  visit  her  father.  She  was  an 
imaginative,  poetic  little  maid,  and  to  her  a  church- 
yard was  a  place  of  dread.  But,  night  after  night,  in 
mirk  darkness,  she  would  take  that  walk,  when  the 
sound  of  the  burn  on  the  stones,  the  rustle  of  the 
wind  in  the  limes,  whispered  only  of  loneliness ;  would 


THE  COVENANTERS  377 

stumble  over  the  graves  in  the  old  kirkyard,  and  yet 
would  reach  her  father's  hiding-place  with  courage 
unabated.  The  soldiers  who  were  searching  for  her 
father  were  her  one  real  terror.  The  love  she  bore 
to  him  was  strong  enough  to  lay  all  the  ghosts  in 
Christentie,  but  the  rabbit  or  fox  that  scuttled  through 
the  bracken,  the  bark  of  a  dog,  the  swish  of  the  wind 
through  long  grass  or  leaves,  would  bring  a  picture  of 
murderous  redcoats  to  her  mind,  and  she  would  come 
to  an  agonised  stop,  her  heart  a-thump  with  appre- 
hension. She  would  stay  in  the  vault  to  watch  her 
father  eat  the  food  she  had  brought,  and  to  tell  him 
all  the  incidents  of  the  day,  until  it  was  so  near  cock- 
crow that  she  had  to  run  up  the  glen  homeward.  It 
was  not  easy  for  her  mother  and  her,  without  the 
servants'  knowledge,  to  provide  food  enough  to  keep 
their  prisoner  alive.  One  day  the  dish  at  dinner  was 
what  Grisell  knew  to  be  her  father's  favourite  — 
sheep's  head.  Her  brothers  and  sisters  were  busily 
supping  broth  when  she  succeeded  in  conveying  the 
whole  head  from  the  dish  to  her  lap.  Her  brother 
Sandy,  afterwards  Lord  Marchmont,  was  finished 
first,  and,  looking  up  from  his  empty  plate,  saw  that 
the  sheep's  head  had  '  santed,'  as  they  say  on  the 
Border. 

4  Mother  ! '  he  shouted,  '  will  ye  look  at  our  Grisell ! 
While  we  have  been  supping  our  broth,  she  has  eaten 
the  hale  sheep's  heid  I ' 


378  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

During  the  day,  as  well  as  by  night,  Grisell  Hume 
was  working  for  her  father.  When  the  security  of 
his  hiding-place  in  the  vault  became  doubtful,  Jamie 
Winter  was  called  on  to  make  a  large  deal  box,  to  be 
stored  in  a  cellar  in  Hume's  castle  of  Redbraes,  now 
known  as  Marchmont.  Before  room  could  be  found  for 
the  case,  much  of  the  earth  on  the  floor  of  the  cellar 
had  to  be  cleared  away,  and  as  the  sound  of  pick  and 
spade  would  have  aroused  suspicion,  Grisell  Hume 
and  the  faithful  Winter  did  it  with  their  own  hands. 
Not  a  nail  was  left  on  her  poor  little  fingers  when  she 
had  burrowed  a  space  sufficiently  deep  and  wide, 
yet  she  finished  her  task,  and  one  dark  night  her 
father  exchanged  one  prison  for  another,  and  took 
up  his  quarters  inside  the  deal  box. 

He  was  still  in  hiding  at  Redbraes  when  a  party 
of  dragoons  were  sent  out  from  Edinburgh  to  take 
him.  On  their  way  they  passed  Halyburton,  where 
John  Hume,  the  laird,  a  staunch  friend  of  Hume  of 
Polwarth,  met  them  on  the  road. 

'  Where  do  you  ride  to-day  ?  '  he  asked. 

To  take  Polwarth,  at  Redbraes,  they  said. 

4  Is  it  so  ?  '  said  Hume.  '  Then  I  '11  go  with  you 
myself  and  be  your  guide.  But  come  your  ways  into 
the  house  and  rest  you  a  little,  till  I  get  ready  for  the 
road.' 

Once  he  had  them  safely  inside  his  house,  his  great 
case-bottles  in  front  of  them,  Hume  left  his  guests 


THE  COVENANTERS  879 

for  a  few  minutes,  and  sent  off  a  messenger  on  a  swift 
horse  that  he  kept  constantly  saddled  for  this  exact 
emergency.  While  the  soldiers  were  still  deep  in  the 
appreciation  of  the  hospitality  of  the  laird  of  Haly- 
burton,  his  messenger  had  reached  Redbraes.  His 
message  was  a  brief  one.  The  envelope  sent  by  him 
was  opened,  and  a  feather  fluttered  out.  Ere  the 
soldiers  arrived  at  Redbraes  that  night,  under  the 
kindly  guidance  of  their  late  host,  the  bird  had  flown, 
and  Patrick  Hume  of  Polwarth  was  safely  across  the 
Border.  When  he  ultimately  found  sanctuary  at 
Utrecht,  Lady  Hume,  with  Grisell  and  all  her  other 
children,  was  able  to  join  him.  When  the  Prince  of 
Orange  was  King  of  England,  and  the  exiles  had 
returned,  Patrick  Hume,  that  *  thin  clever  man,' 
was  made  Chancellor  of  Scotland  and  Earl  of  March- 
mont.  And  when,  in  later  days,  Grisell  Hume  was 
Lady  Grisell  Baillie  of  Jerviswoode,  her  name  was 
famed  not  only  as  that  of  a  poetess,  but  as  a  daughter 
whose  courage,  devotion,  and  fortitude  were  sublime 
even  in  the  dark  days  and  long  nights  of  the  Killing 
Time.  She  it  was  who  wrote  the  song 

'  Werena  my  heart  licht,  I  wad  dee.* 

And  it  was  that  light  heart,  that  delightful  humour 
which,  in  our  own  times,  characterised  her  descendant 
and  namesake,  that  helped  a  child  to  come  with  noble 
distinction  through  times  that  might  have  daunted 


380  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

the  hearts  of  heroes.  On  her  gravestone  at  Mellerstain 
one  may  read  the  somewhat  pompous  catalogue  of 
her  many  virtues.  As  wife  and  mother  she  was  no  less 
perfect  than  she  had  been  as  a  daughter.  '  Christian 
Piety,  Love  of  her  Country,  Zeal  for  her  Friends, 
Compassion  for  her  Enemies,  Chearfulness  of  Spirit, 
Pleasantness  of  Conversation,  Dignity  of  Mind,  Good 
Breeding,  Good  Humour,  Good  Sense,  were  the  daily 
Ornaments  of  an  Usefull  Life,'  says  her  eulogiser, 
Judge  Burnet,  who  is  responsible  for  the  epitaph  of 
the  lady  who,  '  full  of  years  and  good  works,'  was 
buried  on  the  day  upon  which  she  should  have  cele- 
brated her  eighty-second  birthday — Christmas  Day, 
1746.  But  it  is  not  as  an  old  lady  that  Grisell  Hume 
lives  in  the  hearts  of  this  generation,  but  as  a  little 
fragile  girl,  whose  perfect  love  cast  out  all  fear. 

A  less  peaceful  ending  to  troublous  days  than  that 
of  Patrick  Hume  was  that  of  his  friend,  Robert  Baillie 
of  Jerviswoode.  In  England  and  in  Scotland  there 
were  plots  and  plans  made  by  those  men  of  education 
who  were  neither  fanatics  nor  intriguing  politicians, 
but  who  simply  had  an  honest  desire  to  work  for 
their  country's  good.  Hume  of  Polwarth  was  one  of 
these,  Murray  of  Philiphaugh  and  Baillie  of  Jervis- 
woode were  others.  One  honest  man  refused  to  join 
in  the  peaceful  scheme  for  emigrating  themselves 
and  their  families  to  South  Carolina,  in  which  many 
Border  lairds  were  secretly  involved,  because  of  the 


THE  COVENANTERS  881 

ominous  names  of  two  of  the  schemers — '  Hanging- 
shaw '  and  '  Gallowshiels.'  But  while  Jerviswoode 
schemed  in  London,  a  much  more  serious  conspiracy 
was  afoot  there,  and  it  was  for  complicity  in  the 
famous  Rye  House  Plot,  which  had  the  assassination 
of  Charles  n.  for  its  object,  that  Jerviswoode  suffered 
the  death.  He  was  a  member  of  Parliament  at 
Westminster,  a  statesman  rather  than  a  politician. 
He  had  much  learning  and  many  accomplishments, 
and  was  a  man  of  courtly  manners  and  exquisite 
honour. 

*  There  is  for  a  gentleman,  Mr.  Baillie,'  said  Owen 
the  Puritan. 

It  was  inevitable  that  those  who  in  London 
schemed  for  a  cleansing  and  renovation  of  the  rotten 
government  of  the  day  should  come  to  Jerviswoode 
for  council  and  information  with  regard  to  the 
Whig  party  in  Scotland.  In  the  murderous  Rye 
House  Plot,  Jerviswoode  was  much  too  fastidious 
and  upright  a  gentleman  to  befoul  his  hands,  but 
it  was  for  complicity  in  this  that  he  was  seized.  In 
November  1683,  after  several  months  of  imprisonment 
in  London,  so  heavily  loaded  with  chains  that  his 
health  completely  broke  down,  he  was  shipped  to 
Leith.  A  fortnight's  stormy  voyage  in  November 
weather  was  not  likely  to  improve  the  physical 
condition  of  an  old  and  dying  man.  Although  he 
was  sick  unto  death,  he  had  in  Edinburgh  to  undergo 


382  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

many  protracted  examinations.  Late  in  December 
came  the  final  trial.  '  Bluidy  Mackenzie  '  used  all  his 
eloquence  to  prove  to  the  jury  that  this  man  was 
indeed  a  treasonable  conspirator,  a  murderous  criminal. 
Jerviswoode's  sheath — like  that  of  General  Gordon — 
was  almost  worn  out,  but  the  sword  was  bright  and 
keen  as  ever.  He  had  to  lean  on  the  bar  as  he  made 
his  defence,  and  often  during  the  trial  he  all  but 
fainted,  yet  his  reasoning  was  as  subtly  clear  and 
logical,  his  eloquence  as  forceful  as  it  had  ever  been. 
Suddenly  he  took  his  eyes  away  from  President  and 
jury  and  fixed  them  on  Lord  Advocate  Mackenzie. 

'  My  Lord  Advocate,'  he  said  in  his  clear  voice, 
'  I  think  it  strange  that  you  accuse  me  of  such  abomin- 
able things.  When  you  came  to  me  in  the  prison, 
you  told  me  that  such  things  were  laid  to  my  charge, 
but  that  you  did  not  believe  them.  Are  you  convinced 
in  your  conscience  that  I  am  more  guilty  now  than  I 
was  at  the  interview  where  you  acquitted  me  of  guilt  ? 
Do  you  remember  what  passed  betwixt  us  in  the 
prison  ?  ' 

It  was  an  ugly  impasse  for  Mackenzie,  nor  did  he 
come  out  of  it  with  much  credit.  With  the  eyes  of 
the  dying  man  and  the  eyes  of  the  whole  court  upon 
him,  he  rose  in  annoyed  embarrassment. 

'  Jerviswoode,'  he  said,  '  I  own  what  you  say.  My 
thoughts  were  then  as  a  private  man ;  but  what  I 
say  here  is  by  special  direction  of  the  Privy  Council. 


THE  COVENANTERS  383 

He ' — pointing  at  the  Clerk  of  the  Justices — *  he 
knows  my  orders.' 

There  was  a  scorn  in  Jerviswoode's  reply  that  must 
have  penetrated  a  skin  much  thicker  than  that  of  Sir 
George  Mackenzie. 

*  Well,  my  lord,  if  your  lordship  has  one  conscience 
for  yourself  and  another  for  the  Council,  I  pray  God 
to  forgive  you  :  I  do.  My  lords,  I  trouble  your 
lordships  no  further.' 

Until  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  Christmas 
Eve  the  trial  lasted.  At  nine  o'clock  the  verdict  was 
declared.  Christmas  Day  was  nearly  dawning,  and 
it  behoved  the  judges  and  jury  to  make  an  end  of 
such  bloody  work  ere  the  Christian  holiday,  the  day 
of  peace  and  goodwill,  should  claim  their  attention 
for  more  joyous  things. 

The  Doomster  pronounced  the  sentence. 

Robert  Baillie  of  Jerviswoode  was  4  to  be  taken  to 
the  Market  Cross  of  Edinburgh  this  24th  day  of 
December  'twixt  two  and  four  in  the  afternoon, 
and  there  to  be  hanged  on  a  gibbet  till  he  be  dead, 
and  his  head  to  be  cut  off  and  his  body  to  be  quartered 
in  four,  and  his  head  to  be  affixed  upon  the  Nether 
Bow  Port  of  Edinburgh,  one  of  his  quarters  on  the 
Tolbooth  of  Jedburgh,  another  on  the  Tolbooth  of 
Lanark,  a  third  on  the  Tolbooth  of  Ayr,  and  a  fourth 
on  the  Tolbooth  of  Glasgow.'  His  '  name,  fame, 
memory,  and  honours  '  were  to  be  extinct,  his  blood 


384  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

to  be  tainted, — *  which  was  pronounced  for  Doom.' 
Then  the  King's  heralds  came  forward,  sounded  their 
trumpets,  tore  asunder  the  coat-of-arms  that  Robert 
Baillie  had  ever  borne  so  worthily,  trampled  it  under- 
foot, and  made  proclamation  of  the  degradation  of 
his  family. 

4  My  lords,'  said  the  convicted  criminal,  '  the  time 
is  short,  the  sentence  sharp,  but  I  thank  my  God  who 
has  made  me  as  fit  to  die  as  ye  are  to  live.' 

Once  back  in  his  cell  he  leaned  on  his  bed  in  silence 
for  a  little.  On  being  asked  how  he  did,  '  Never 
better,'  he  replied,  '  and  in  a  few  hours  I  '11  be  well 
beyond  conception.'  '  Within  a  little,'  he  said,  when 
he  kissed  his  wife  and  little  daughter  and  his  son 
George,  and  said  farewell,  '  we  shall  have  a  blithe  and 
cheerful  meeting.' 

On  the  scaffold  he  tried  to  speak  a  few  words  to  the 
thronging  crowds,  but,  as  was  the  custom,  the  drums 
were  loudly  beat,  so  that  his  voice  was  drowned,  and 
the  hangman  put  an  end  to  him  as  he  silently  prayed. 

Such  was  the  treat  provided  for  the  people  of 
Edinburgh,  by  a  paternal  government,  on  Christmas 
Eve  1684 — the  legalised  murder  of  an  honourable, 
cultured,  Christian  gentleman  from  the  Border.  The 
wark  went  bonnily  on  ! 

Henry  Hall  of  Haughhead,  a  kinsman  of  the  Earl 
of  Roxburghe,  was  a  Borderer  of  a  different  type 
from  Baillie  of  Jerviswoode.  His  father,  Hobby  Hall, 


THE  COVENANTERS  385 

at  his  property  of  Haughhead  on  the  left  bank  of 
the  Kale,  had  resisted  royal  authority  in  days  when 
Habby  Ker  was  King's  representative  on  the  Middle 
Marches.  Henry  Hall  had  been  brought  up  in  the 
nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord.  A  hundred 
yards  from  Haughhead,  by  the  red  scaurs  of  the 
Kale,  is  the  spot  where  was  held  many  a  conventicle. 
Hall  was  always  a  fighter.  At  Rullion  Green,  at 
Drumclog,  and  at  Bothwell  Bridge  he  fought,  and  the 
famous  '  Bluidy  Banner '  is  said  to  have  belonged  to 
him.  It  is  a  blue  silk  flag,  four  and  a  half  feet  long 
by  three  and  a  half  broad,  with  an  inscription  of  three 
lines.  The  first  line  is  in  Hebrew  characters,  and  the 
whole  inscription,  in  red  letters,  runs — 

'  Jehovak-Nissi,  Exodus  xvii.  15. 
For  Christ  and  His  Truths 
No  Quarter  to  ye  active  enimies  of  ye  Covenant.' 

Much  did  Hall  suffer  for  the  sake  of  nonconformity, 
but  he  died  at  last,  an  old  man,  not  on  the  gibbet,  but 
from  the  wounds  he  got  in  a  stout  fight  defending  a 
preacher  of  the  Gospel.  He  and  Cargill  the  preacher 
were  run  to  earth  by  the  governor  of  Blackness  in  an 
inn  at  Queensferry.  While  Hall  laid  about  him  with  a 
will,  Cargill  made  his  escape,  but  a  shrewd  blow  on  his 
head  with  the  doghead  of  a  carbine  gave  Hall  his 
death  wound.  His  captors  carried  him  off,  but  he 
died  ere  they  reached  Edinburgh. 

If  Galloway  claimed  the  most  of  the  martyrs  to  the 


386  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Covenant,  the  other  portions  of  the  Border  certainly 
had  their  share.  They  might  not  own  maiden  martyrs 
like  those  who  perished,  lashed  to  the  stake,  when  the 
Sol  way  came,  like  a  stealthy,  stalking,  wild  beast, 
in  pay  of  a  bloodthirsty  king,  to  claim  its  prey. 
But  in  Selkirk  we  have  a  respectable  woman  who, 
for  her  good  offices  to  Presbyterian  ministers  and 
other  sufferers  for  the  cause,  was  '  severely  tost  by 
several  hands '  (in  a  blanket,  or  otherwise),  was 
incarcerated  in  Edinburgh  Tolbooth,  and  narrowly 
escaped  being  sent  to  the  Plantations;  and  there  is 
scarcely  a  Border  parish  now  which  cannot  claim  that 
it  paid  toll  to  the  religious  oppressors  of  those  tunes. 

The  lonely  Border  hills  and  glens  were  a  natural 
refuge  for  the  oppressed.  In  a  turf  hut  on  the  face 
of  the  Carter  Fell,  Veitch  the  Covenanter  hid  for  many 
a  day.  The  '  lurgg  dogs,'  so  skilled  in  tracking 
reivers  to  their  death,  bayed  past  his  hiding-place  in 
vain.  Dragoons  cantered  their  horses  above  and 
below  him,  but  so  cunningly  constructed  was  that  den 
that  faced  the  whole  of  the  south  of  Scotland  that 
never  did  an  eye  discern  it  that  was  not  the  eye  of  a 
friend.  Ruberslaw  had  the  honour  of  being  a  sanctuary 
for  *  savoury  Mr.  Peden.'  At  Peden's  Pulpit,  a  rocky 
chasm  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  and  in  the  birch  and 
hazel  cleuch  of  Hagburn,  he  held  his  conventicles. 
It  was  when  dragoons  came  to  surprise  one  of 
those  gatherings  that  the  old  man  'pit  up'  his 


THE  COVENANTERS  387 

famous  prayer:  'Cast  the  lap  o'  Thy  cloak,  Lord, 
ower  puir  auld  Sandy.'  And,  lo,  a  miracle;  for  a 
'Liddesdale  drow,'  thick,  grey,  wet,  impenetrable, 
suddenly  fell  upon  the  hill,  and  the  discomfited 
soldiers  had  to  find  their  way  home  through  it  as  best 
they  could. 

Up  Yarrow,  Renwick  found  a  hiding-place.  At 
Riskenhope  he  preached  his  last  sermon  before  his 
martyrdom,  and  baptized  a  child — Marion  Renwick, 
who  was  still  alive  and  living  at  Dryhope  in  1785. 
In  Galashiels  parish  Claverhouse  found  his  work  cut 
out.  At  a  conventicle  which  he  surprised  there  in 
1679  he  found  the  Ladies  Torwoodlee,  Galashiels,  and 
Newtown  younger,  the  Laird  and  Lady  Ashiesteel, 
the  Lady  Fernilee,  and  several  of  the  Pringle  clan, 
who  had  all  to  pay  handsomely  for  their  law-breaking, 
while  the  two  ministers  who  preached  to  them  were 
sent  to  the  Bass.  In  Selkirkshire,  Scotts,  Pringles,  and 
Elliots  paid  the  fine  for  nonconformity  ;  in  Roxburgh- 
shire, Scotts,  Elliots,  Kers,  Riddells,  Turnbulls  and 
Douglases.  In  the  list  we  find  Scott  of  Harden,  Scott 
of  Highchesters,  Scott  of  Tushielaw,  Scott  of  Todrig, 
Scott  of  Thirlestane,  and  Scott  of  Gilmanscleugh. 
The  Scotts  were  warriors  ever. 

A  goodly  list  of  raiding  names  we  have  amongst 
those  marked  as  malcontents  by  the  Government. 
Scotts  and  Turnbulls,  Telfers,  Rutherfords,  Arm- 
strongs, Gladstones,  Riddells,  and  Kers  were  some 


388  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

of  those  who  suffered  for  their  temerity  by  imprison- 
ment, exile  or  death. 

The  godly  Mr.  Blackader,  son  of  a  famous  Berwick- 
shire house,  has  left  us,  in  his  own  vivid  language, 
pictures  of  himself  as  he  worked  as  one  of  the  hunted 
men  of  the  Covenant  as  far  north  as  Fife,  and  through 
all  the  Border  counties,  ere  he  was  seized  and  taken 
to  die  a  prisoner  on  the  Bass  Rock.  It  was  at  one  of 
his  famous  conventicles  on  Lilhesleaf  Moor  that  the 
sheriff  had  warning  of  what  was  going  on.  The  sheriff 
was  the  Laird  of  Heriot,  and  it  may  have  been  because 
his  sister  was  one  of  Blackader's  hearers  that  warning 
also  came  to  the  Covenanters,  who  shifted  their  ground 
from  Lilliesleaf  to  Selkirk  Common.  Morning  service 
was  over,  and  afternoon  service — that  weariness  in  the 
flesh  to  those  whose  flesh  was  weak,  that  joy  and 
refreshment  to  those  whose  flesh  was  willing  and 
ready  for  martyrdom — had  begun,  when  the  sheriff 
rode  up  with  his  men  and  bade  the  congregation,  in 
the  King's  name,  at  once  to  disperse.  There  might 
have  been  bloodshed  there  and  then,  for  the  dragoons 
— as  Sir  Walter  says — were  fierce,  the  Covenanters 
dour.  But  the  sheriff's  sister  caught  her  brother's 
bridle-rein. 

'  Fie  on  ye,  man  !  '  she  cried,  '  fie  on  ye  !  The 
vengeance  of  God  will  overtake  ye  for  marring  so 
good  a  work  ! ' 

Apparently  the  sheriff  was  open  to  family  influence, 


THE  COVENANTERS  389 

for,  as  far  as  one  can  gather,  the  only  one  who  suffered 
for  his  attendance  at  that  conventicle  was  Bennett, 
the  Laird  of  Chesters,  to  whom  it  cost  an  imprison- 
ment in  the  Bass  and  a  fine  of  four  thousand  merks. 

It  is  from  John  Blackader  that  we  hear  of  a  com- 
munion service  at  East  Nisbet,  in  '  a  green  and 
pleasant  haugh,  fast  by  the  waterside,'  with,  for  roof, 
4  the  clear  blue  sky.'  To  him,  too,  we  owe  the  account 
of  a  conventicle  on  a  moor  where  the  snow  lay  deep, 
and  where  the  congregation  made  their  own  pews 
out  of  bunches  of  heather. 

When  the  hunted  Presbyterians  found  refuge  across 
the  Tweed  in  Northumberland,  there  was  many  a 
conventicle  held  by  the  side  of  the  Tweed.  On  the 
Tweed  itself,  indeed,  in  dead  of  winter,  when  it  was 
ice-bound,  John  Welch  preached,  so  that  in  the  event 
of  troopers  disturbing  the  meeting,  sanctuary  was  not 
far  to  seek. 

On  the  Border  hills  we  have  unmarked  graves  of 
martyrs  as  well  as  of  those  who  fell  in  the  old  reiving 
days.  In  the  Borderland,  too,  it  was  that  many  a 
worthy  preacher  who  bore  the  Cross  to  win  the  Crown, 
first  learned  how  to  preach  and  to  pray.  At  Crailing, 
Samuel  Rutherford  spent  a  childhood  almost  as  much 
surrounded  by  miracles  as  that  of  St.  Columba.  At 
Mertoun,  Kirkton,  preacher  and  historian,  held  a  charge 
for  five  years.  James  Guthrie,  from  whose  martyr's 
crown  some  of  the  radiance  is  removed  by  his  con- 


390  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

scientious  religious  persecution  of  Montrose  while 
he  was  in  prison,  was  for  some  years  minister  of 
Lauder.  John  Livingston  was  in  Ancrum,  Henry 
Erskine  at  Dry  burgh. 

At  Gateshaw  Braes,  in  Morebattle  parish,  there  is 
pointed  out  a  spot  where  conventicles  in  those  days 
were  held.  According  to  local  superstition,  if  one 
lays  one's  ear  close  to  the  turf  there,  the  sound  of 
singing  can  be  heard  coming  from  far  away.  And 
whatever  may  be  one's  creed,  one's  form  of  worship, 
in  these  later  days  of  religious  freedom,  there  are  not 
many  places  in  the  lands  of  hill  and  moor  that  lie 
to  the  south,  where  our  eyes  cannot  picture  the 
martyrs  at  prayer,  where  our  ears  cannot  hear  the 
music  of  the  voices  of  those  who  sang,  with  the  pro- 
spect of  painful  death  before  them,  yet  with  a  heart 
of  perfect  faith — 

'  I  to  the  hills  will  lift  mine  eyes, 
From  whence  doth  come  mine  aid.' 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  391 


CHAPTER  XII 

PRINCE   CHARLIE   ON   THE   BORDER 

He  either  fears  his  fate  too  much, 

Or  his  deserts  are  small, 
Who  dares  not  put  it  to  the  touch, 

To  gain  or  lose  it  all. 

MARQUIS  OP  MONTROSB. 

WHEN  the  Prince  of  Orange  came  to  sit  on  the  throne 
of  Britain,  peace  and  prosperity  followed  in  his  train. 
In  the  south  of  Scotland  swords  had  been  drawn  for 
the  Covenant's  sake,  but  when  those  days  of  martyr- 
dom were  ended,  it  seemed  as  though  the  old  fighting 
spirit  of  the  Borderers  had  gone  for  ever.  No  longer 
could  one  say  of  the  men  of  the  Marches,  '  War  's 
the  Borderers'  game,'  nor 

'  The  good  old  rule 
Sufficeth  them — the  simple  plan — 
That  they  should  take  who  have  the  power, 
And  they  should  keep  who  can.' 

Prosperity  and  Romance  seldom  go  hand  in  hand. 
Success  in  agriculture  was  the  soundest  means  for 
making  the  ploughshare  more  important  than  the 
sword,  and  the  Border  counties  in  the  early  years  of 


392  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

the  eighteenth  century  were  already  becoming  deadly 
respectable. 

When  William  and  Mary  took  their  places  on  the 
twin  thrones  of  Britain,  there  was  only  a  remnant 
left  of  the  spirit  that  refused  to  bow  to  the  authority 
that  had  the  law  behind  it. 

At  the  Town  Cross  of  Jedburgh  the  burgh  magis- 
trates were  drinking  to  the  healths  of  their  new 
sovereigns,  when  a  well-known  Jacobite  came  past. 
They  pressed  him  to  join  them,  and  he  took  the 
proffered  glass  of  wine  in  his  hand,  drank  it  off,  then 
gave  his  '  sentiment ' :  'As  surely  as  that  glass  will 
break,'  he  cried,  '  I  wish  confusion  to  King  William, 
and  the  Restoration  of  our  Sovereign  and  the  heir  !  ' 
With  that  he  flung  the  glass  away  with  all  his  might. 
It  lighted  on  one  of  the  steps  of  the  Tolbooth,  trundled 
down,  and — wonder  of  wonders — remained  unbroken. 
When  he  heard  that  an  admirer  had  sent  the  prophetic 
symbol  to  King  William,  the  feelings  of  the  old  Tory 
towards  the  man  who  made  that '  little  round  plucked 
glasse  '  must  have  waxed  somewhat  murderous. 

In  1715,  when  Jacobites  on  both  sides  of  the  Tweed 
were  given  the  chance  of  bringing  '  the  auld  Stuarts 
back  again,'  the  Chevalier  de  St.  George,  James  vni. 
by  rights,  was  proclaimed  King  at  Moffat.  To  Kelso, 
on  October  22,  1715,  marched  the  forces  of  the  Stuart 
King,  fording  the  Tweed,  though  it  ran  deep  at  the 
time.  The  Highlanders  were  commanded  by  Mack- 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  393 

intosh  of  Borhim,  the  Jacobites  from  the  west  were 
under  Lord  Kenmure,  and  the  men  from  the  English 
dales  were  under  the  gallant  Lord  Derwentwater. 
On  Sunday,  October  23,  an  English  chaplain  preached 
to  troops  and  townspeople  from  the  text — l  The 
right  of  the  firstborn  is  his,'  and  all  present  were 
much  edified.  On  the  24th  the  Chevalier  was  pro- 
claimed King  at  the  Market  Place. 

'No  Union!  no  Malt  Tax!  no  Salt  Tax!'  shouted  the 
Kelso  people.  But  they  made  no  mention  of  fighting 
for  the  Sovereign  whom  they  acknowledged.  Their 
sword-arms  were  too  busily  taking  care  of  their  pockets. 

It  was  a  flash  in  the  pan,  that  Rebellion  of  1715 ; 
a  discharge  from  a  gun  insufficiently  loaded  with 
only  partially  dry  powder.  For  that  flash  many  a 
man  and  woman  had  to  pay  a  price  of  bitter  sorrow, 
of  death,  and  of  pain.  But  the  Border  folk  only 
shouted,  they  did  not  do ;  and  perhaps  one  would 
have  felt  a  little  prouder  of  the  men  of  that  genera- 
tion if  they  had  been  a  little  less  cautious,  a  little 
less  well  balanced  on  the  fence. 

In  1745  the  Borderers  were  once  again  given  a 
chance  of  drawing  swords,  but  few  there  were  who 
took  the  chance  then  given. 

We  have  seen  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  riding  on  her 
white  pony  over  the  Border  moors.  One  there  is  who 
might  well  ride  by  her  side  when  darkness  is  on  the 
hills,  and  winter  nights  are  stormy,  and  when  imagina- 


394  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

tion  turns  the  drip  of  the  rain  into  the  thud  of  horses' 
hoofs,  the  moan  of  the  wind  into  the  lament  of  those 
who  are  no  longer  of  this  earth.  Strangely  alike  in 
some  ways  were  Mary  Stuart  and  her  equally  hapless 
descendant,  Prince  Charles  Edward.  To  both  those 
members  of  an  ill-fated  line  the  fairies  at  their  birth 
were  kind.  To  them  was  given  the  gift  of  beauty — 
brown  eyes,  radiant  chestnut  hair,  gold-tipped,  fair 
complexion,  graceful  figure.  A  light  and  happy  heart, 
full  of  generosity  and  kind  thought  for  others,  was 
possessed  by  both.  Both  owned  the  saving  grace 
of  humour,  the  endearing  quality  of  recklessness,  a 
gallant  spirit  and  a  dauntless  courage,  and,  above 
all,  with  all  those  possessions,  both  Queen  and 
Prince  were  endowed  with  that  indefinable  possession 
that  we  call  '  charm.' 

The  Prince  who  came  to  Scotland  in  1745,  to  win 
hearts  and  lose  a  kingdom,  was  indeed  a  prince  of 
fairy  tale.  '  Bonnie  Prince  Charlie,'  even  in  his 
childhood,  was  one  to  inspire  with  enthusiasm  those 
whose  belief  through  the  years  had  been — 

'  Let  howlet  Whigs  do  what  they  can, 
The  Stuarts  will  be  back  again.' 

In  1727  the  Due  de  Liria,  a  son  of  Marshal  Berwick, 
wrote  of  him :  4  The  Prince  of  Wales  was  now  six  and 
a  half,  and,  besides  his  great  beauty,  was  remarkable 
for  dexterity,  grace,  and  almost  supernatural  clever- 
ness. Not  only  could  he  read  fluently,  but  he  knew 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  395 

the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith  as  well  as  the  master 
who  had  taught  him.  He  could  ride,  could  fire  a  gun, 
and,  more  surprising  still,  I  have  seen  him  take  a 
crossbow  and  kill  birds  on  the  roof,  and  split  a  rolling 
ball  with  a  shaft  ten  times  in  succession.  He  speaks 
English,  French,  and  German  perfectly,  and  alto- 
gether he  is  the  most  ideal  Prince  I  have  ever  met 
in  the  course  of  my  life.' 

In  1734  the  Due  de  Liria  had  his  admiration  for 
his  ideal  Prince  intensified.  Prince  Charlie,  a  boy  of 
thirteen,  was  a  general  of  artillery  in  the  army  of 
French,  Walloons,  Spaniards,  and  Italians  who,  in 
the  interests  of  Don  Carlos,  and  under  the  command 
of  the  Due,  was  besieging  Gaeta  in  the  kingdom  of 
Naples.  The  little  general  gained  golden  opinions 
alike  from  his  commander  and  from  his  men.  There 
was  nothing  he  would  not  and  did  not  dare.  Fear 
was  to  him  an  unknown  quantity,  and  war  a  glorious 
game.  '  His  body  was  made  for  war,'  wrote  Lord 
Elcho  in  later  days.  He  could  give  his  orders  to  the 
extraordinarily  mixed  force  under  him  in  all  their 
various  languages,  and  even  at  that  age  he  knew  the 
secret  of  commanding  the  hearts  of  his  soldiers. 
Even  then  the  Prince  had  built  for  himself  a  castle 
that  contained  nothing  less  than  the  throne  of  Britain. 
His  was  to  be  the  sword  that  won  back  a  crown  for 
his  father,  and  gained  it  for  himself  and  his  heirs 
for  ever.  On  shipboard,  on  the  way  from  Gaeta  to 


396  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Naples,  his  hat  blew  overboard.  A  boat  was  being 
lowered  in  the  hope  of  saving  it,  when  the  Prince 
stopped  the  sailors. 

*  I  shall  be  obliged  before  long  to  go  and  fetch  myself 
a  hat  in  England,'  he  said  with  a  smile. 

During  the  years  that  followed  the  Neapolitan 
campaign,  it  would  seem  as  though  every  thought 
that  Prince  Charlie  owned  had  the  same  trend.  All  he 
learned,  all  he  did,  was  towards  one  end.  The  vision 
of  a  crown  was  the  Sangreal  of  that  young  knight. 
His  too  amorous  father  complained  that  his  son  was 
'  backward '  in  such  matters.  Women  found  him 
shy,  and  his  youth  was  a  pure  youth,  in  times  when 
purity  was  rare.  He  would  take  long  walks  bare- 
footed, that  his  feet  might  be  inured  to  yet  longer 
marches  in  days  to  come.  Boar-hunting  at  Cisterna, 
long  hours  of  rowing  on  the  Lake  of  Albano,  golfing 
in  the  Borghese  Gardens,  weeks  of  the  hard  training 
of  hunting,  shooting,  and  fishing  expeditions — all 
these  were  gone  through  by  the  lad  who  loved  sport 
for  sport's  sake,  yet  who  was  working  to  the  end  that 
at  length  he  might  go  in  for  the  greatest  form  of  sport 
of  all  and  win  for  himself  a  kingdom.  4  Romance 
was  in  his  blood,'  writes  one  of  his  friends  of  this 
century. 

It  was  on  a  July  day  in  1745  that  Prince  Charlie 
came  to  seek  his  own,  and  landed  on  Eriska,  the  little 
island  in  the  western  seas.  On  a  rocky  brae  near 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  397 

Eriska  Bay  there  grows  to  this  day  a  pink  convolvulus. 
Many  bits  of  it  have  been  transplanted,  but  it  will  only 
live  at  Eriska ;  and  because  tradition  says  that  Prince 
Charlie  planted  it,  it  is  known  as  '  the  Prince's  flower.' 
Another  flower  was  planted  in  Scotland  that  day 
by  the  Prince — a  flower  of  romance,  the  perennial 
blossom  of  loyalty  to  a  hopeless  cause,  of  love  for 
the  gallant  young  leader  of  a  forlorn  hope.  But  that 
was  a  flower  that  bore  transplantation  to  other  lands, 
though  nowhere  did  it  ever  blossom  more  fair  than  in 
the  Highlands  of  Scotland. 

A  large  Hebridean  eagle  hovered  over  the  ship  as 
it  neared  Scottish  land.  The  Marquis  of  Tullibardine 
was  the  first  to  see  it,  but  felt  shy  of  speaking  of  it, 
'  lest  they  should  have  called  it  a  Highland  freit  in 
him.'  At  last  the  old  man  had  to  speak. 

6  Sir,'  he  said  to  the  Prince,  '  I  hope  this  is  an 
excellent  omen  and  promises  good  things  to  us.  The 
king  of  birds  is  come  to  welcome  your  Royal  Highness 
upon  your  arrival  in  Scotland.' 

In  Scotland  the  welcome  Prince  Charlie  received 
from  those  whose  aid  he  had  hoped  for  was  of  a  sort 
to  have  dashed  the  most  sanguine  of  spirits.  The 
Highland  chieftains  did  their  best  to  persuade  him 
to  relinquish  his  attempt  and  to  return  to  France. 
There  were  not  men  enough,  arms  enough ;  there 
was  but  little  money.  In  such  circumstances  to  war 
against  the  holder  of  the  Crown  of  Britain  was  simply 


398  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

to  meet  defeat,  disappointment,  probably  death, 
open-armed. 

*  Go  home,'  they  advised,  '  there  is  no  other  possible 
course.' 

4 1  am  come  home?  answered  the  Prince,  *  and  can 
entertain  no  notion  of  returning.  I  am  persuaded 
that  my  faithful  Highlanders  will  stand  by  me.' 

On  board  his  ship,  the  Doutelle,  Prince  Charlie 
listened  obdurately  to  persuasion  and  to  argument. 
There  listened  also  another  lad  in  whose  veins  the 
ichor  of  romance  was  running  hot.  The  Prince  saw  the 
eager  eyes  of  Rana'd  Macdonald,  '  young  Clanranald,' 
upon  him,  and  suddenly  turned  to  him. 

4  Will  you  not  aid  me  ? '  he  asked. 

4 1  will,  I  will !  Though  not  another  man  in  the 
Highlands  should  draw  a  sword,  I  will  die  for  you  ! ' 
cried  the  youth. 

It  was  a  simple  incident,  but  it  only  wanted  that 
piece  of  boyish  enthusiasm  to  4  fire  the  heather.' 
The  older  men,  who  had  been  vainly  trying  to  rule 
their  hearts  by  their  heads,  quickly  succumbed. 
The  irresistible  charm  of  Prince  Charlie's  personality 
swept  away  all  difficulties.  He  was  a  Prince  to  love, 
to  fight  for,  to  die  for.  4  If  this  Prince  once  sets 
eyes  on  you,  he  will  make  you  do  whatever  he  pleases,' 
wrote  Lochiel's  brother  to  that  gallant  chief.  There 
were  old  men,  even  in  Sir  Walter  Scott's  day,  who  had 
known  4  Bonnie  Prince  Charlie,'  and  who  could  not 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  399 

speak  of  him  dry-eyed ;  and  Scott  tells  us  that  Donald 
Macleod,  Prince  Charlie's  pilot  in  the  western  seas, 
*  never  mentioned  him  without  tender  emotion.' 

'  I  swear  by  moon  and  starns  sae  bright, 

And  sun  that  glances  early, 
If  I  had  twenty  thousand  lives, 

I  'd  gie  them  a'  for  Charlie. 
I  ance  had  sons,  but  now  hae  nane ; 

I  bred  them  toiling  sairly ; 
And  I  wad  bear  them  a'  again, 
And  lose  them  a'  for  Charlie. 

We  '11  o'er  the  water,  we  '11  o'er  the  sea, 

We'll  o'er  the  water  to  Charlie; 
Come  weel,  come  woe,  we  '11  gather  and  go, 
And  live  or  die  wi'  Charlie.' 

On  August  1st  the  British  Government  offered  a 
reward  of  £30,000  for  the  head  of  Charles  Edward 
Stuart,  alive  or  dead,  and  the  Prince  accepted  the 
challenge  by  sending  off  the  Doutelle,  thereby  burning 
his  ships. 

On  August  9th  he  raised  his  standard  at  Glenfinnan, 
and  from  then,  until  August  16th,  when  he  rode  to 
Holyrood  by  way  of  Arthur's  Seat  and  Salisbury 
Crags,  his  was  a  triumphal  royal  progress.  At  Cask, 
in  Perthshire,  on  the  way  south,  he  had  a  chance  of 
showing  his  natural  winning  graciousness  when  he 
rode  through  the  cornfields  and  found  the  grain 
hanging  dead  ripe  and  uncut.  In  answer  to  his 
questions  it  was  explained  to  him  that  the  tenants  of 
his  good  friend,  Oliphant  of  Cask,  had  refused  to 


400  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

don  the  white  cockade,  and  that  their  landlord  had 
therefore  '  laid  an  arrest  or  inhibition  on  their  corn- 
fields.' No  sooner  had  he  heard  the  reason  when  he 
sprang  from  his  saddle,  cut  a  few  blades  with  his 
sword,  and  gave  them  to  his  horse. 

4  There,  I  have  broken  the  inhibition,'  he  said. 
'  Now  every  man  may  gather  his  own.' 

The  wife  of  one  of  his  few  followers  from  the  Border 
was  prominent  during  the  days  that  Prince  Charlie 
held  Edinburgh.  Seated  on  horseback  at  the  Cross, 
a  drawn  sword  in  one  hand,  the  beautiful  Mrs.  Murray 
of  Broughton  distributed  white  cockades  to  crowds 
that  were  rapidly  realising  the  infection  of  enthusiasm. 
The  women  were  nearly  all  Jacobites — cela  va  sans 
dire. 

1  My  friends,  I  have  thrown  away  the  scabbard ! ' 
said  Prince  Charlie,  presenting  his  sword  to  an  enthusi- 
astic army  at  Duddingston  on  September  20th,  and  on 
September  21st  the  battle  of  Prestonpans  was  fought 
and  won.  The  man  who,  the  night  before,  recon- 
noitred all  the  enemy's  approaches,  riding  on  his 
white  pony,  a  good  mark  for  a  dropping  fire  from  the 
Hanoverians,  pulling  down  for  a  path  for  his  mount 
the  stone  dikes  that  came  in  his  way,  and  taking  as 
prisoner  a  gentleman  whom  he  encountered  during 
his  work,  was  Ker  of  Graden,  a  Border  Scot,  aide-de- 
camp to  the  Prince,  and  one  of  the  bravest  of  the 
brave  men  who  went  through  a  campaign  in  the  face 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  401 

of  enormous  odds.  On  the  evening  of  that  day,  troops 
of  King  William's  horse,  dusty  and  foam-flecked, 
clattered  into  Coldstream  and  Cornhill.  Berwick-on- 
Tweed  saw  them  and  their  general  next  day.  4  They 
ran  like  rabbits,'  Prince  Charlie  wrote  to  his  father. 

'  Says  the  Berwickers  unto  Sir  John, 
"  O  what 's  become  o'  all  your  men  ?  " 
"  In  faith,"  says  he,  "  I  dinna  ken ; 
I  left  them  a'  this  morning." 

Says  Lord  Mark  Ker,  "  Ye  are  na  blate 
To  bring  us  the  news  o'  your  ain  defeat. 
I  think  you  deserve  the  back  o'  the  gate : 
Get  out  o'  my  sight  this  morning." 

Hey,  Johnnie  Cope,  are  ye  waukin'  yet? 

Or  are  ye  sleepin',  I  wad  wit  ? 

O  haste  ye,  get  up,  for  the  drums  do  beat ! 

O,  fie,  Cope,  rise  in  the  morning ! ' 

When  those  who  love  to  think  of  the  gracious  deeds 
of  the  young  Chevalier  read  of  the  brutalities  of  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland  after  Culloden,  it  is  good  to 
think  that  it  was  Prince  Charlie  himself  who  quickly 
put  a  stop  to  the  slaughter  after  his  victory  at  Preston- 
pans,  and  that  his  next  care  was  to  have  the  wounded 
tended,  the  dead  buried.  Of  the  latter  there  were  over 
five  hundred  redcoats  and  about  thirty  Jacobites. 

4  Sir,'  cried  one  of  his  staff,  pointing  to  the  dead 
they  rode  amongst,  '  there  are  your  enemies  at  your 
feet.' 

'  They  are  my  father's  subjects,'  said  Prince  Charlie, 
turning  away  his  head. 


402  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

On  October  30th  a  council  of  war  was  held,  and 
invasion  of  England  was  decided  upon.  There  was 
disagreement  with  regard  to  a  route.  The  Prince, 
to  whom  daring  always  appealed  more  than  caution, 
wished  to  attack  Wade,  who  was  as  yet  unprepared 
for  the  attack,  at  Newcastle.  The  Dutch  were 
neutralised  by  the  capitulation  of  Tournay;  French 
supplies  had  been  safely  landed  at  Stonehaven,  and 
from  France  a  handsome  backing  was  to  be  expected. 
A  victory  at  Newcastle  would  mean  a  certain  gain 
in  forces,  and  English  Jacobites,  whom  prudence 
was  holding  back,  would  then  certainly  come  forward. 
Lord  Georg^  Murray  objected  to  this  project  on  account 
of  the  difficulty  of  crossing  the  swollen  Tweed,  in 
wintry  weather,  in  the  event  of  defeat.  The  word 
4  defeat '  was  not  in  the  Prince's  book  of  the  rules  of 
war.  Lord  George  urged  that  if  they  went  to  Carlisle 
they  would  certainly  be  joined  by  the  Lancashire 
men,  who  were  whole-heartedly  Jacobite,  and  by  the 
Welsh,  who  were  equally  staunch.  Then,  if  need  be, 
they  could  march  across  country  to  Newcastle,  and 
do  what  they  would  with  Wade.  The  council  ad- 
journed, Prince  Charlie  unconvinced,  until  next  day, 
when  the  Prince  gave  in  to  the  majority,  '  which 
seemed  to  give  great  contentment.' 

On  November  1st  the  Prince's  army  started  on  its 
march  south.  One  column,  at  the  Prince's  suggestion, 
marched  to  Kelso,  in  order,  if  possible,  to  deceive 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  403 

Wade  and  draw  him  north,  so  that  the  Highlanders 
should  be  in  Carlisle  ere  he  could  reach  it.  The  first 
division — baggage  and  artillery — under  Lord  George 
Murray,  went  by  Peebles  and  Moffat.  Another  went 
by  Selkirk,  Hawick,  and  Langholm,  while  the  Prince 
went  by  Kelso.  Tullibardine,  Balmerino,  Elcho, 
Cluny,  and  Pitsligo  travelled  by  Selkirk.  Pitsligo 
was  an  infirm  old  man,  and  the  Prince,  who  never 
failed  to  see  to  the  comforts  of  others,  lent  him 
his  carriage.  The  entire  force  mustered  something 
between  seven  thousand  and  eight  thousand  men.  On 
the  night  of  October  31st  Prince  Charlie  slept  at  Pinkie 
House,  and  next  morning  the  march  to  England  began. 

If  there  were  any  in  his  army  who  had  fancied  that 
their  young  Prince  was  better  fitted  to  be  the  hero 
of  ballrooms  than  the  leader  of  a  stern  campaign, 
they  were  not  long  left  in  error.  The  Prince  never 
spared  himself.  He  usually  slept  in  his  boots,  ever 
ready  for  the  attack.  He  marched  at  the  head  of  the 
clans,  target  over  his  shoulder. 

Says  Maxwell  of  Kirkconnel,  whose  exactness  is 
always  beyond  appeal :  4  People  thought  it  was  only 
for  a  mile  or  two,  to  encourage  the  soldiers  at  the 
beginning,  and  were  surprised  to  see  him  continue  all 
day,  but  it  was  the  same  every  day  after,  during  the 
whole  expedition  ;  in  dirty  lanes  and  deep  snow  he 
took  his  chance  with  the  common  men,  and  would 
seldom  be  prevailed  upon  to  get  on  horseback  and 


404  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

cross  a  river.  It 's  not  to  be  imagined  how  much  this 
manner  of  bringing  himself  down  to  a  level  with  the 
men,  and  his  affable  behaviour  to  the  meanest  of 
them,  endeared  him  to  the  army.' 

Two  nights  were  spent  at  Dalkeith,  and  on 
November  3rd  the  Prince's  column  marched  over 
the  lonely  Soutra  Hill  to  Lauder,  where  Prince 
Charlie  found  quarters  at  Thirlestane  Castle,  then 
unoccupied.  At  Lauder  it  was  found  that  some  of  the 
Highlanders  had  lagged  behind  purposely,  with  a 
view  to  desertion,  it  was  thought.  Next  morning, 
before  daylight,  their  royal  commander  had  ridden 
back  to  Channelkirk,  beaten  up  the  most  of  the 
stragglers,  and  marched  them  on  to  Lauder.  Kelso 
was  reached  after  dark  on  November  4th.  There  the 
Prince  made  Sunlaws,  three  miles  south  on  the 
Jedburgh  road,  his  headquarters.  The  house  has 
three  times  been  burned  down  since  then,  but  a 
white  rose  that  Prince  Charlie  planted  still  blooms 
there  and  keeps  his  memory  fragrant — fit  emblem  for 
a  Prince,  the  story  of  whose  gallant  campaign  is  one 
of  the  white  roses  that  never  fade,  however  long  they 
may  be  kept  between  the  musty  pages  of  history. 

The  tidings  of  the  advance  of  the  Jacobite  army 
were  far  from  being  welcome  to  the  men  of  the  Borders. 
It  is  amazing,  and  almost  unaccountable,  how  entirely 
their  enthusiasm  was  left  unkindled.  The  descendants 
of  those  who  had  ever  been  so  ready  for  a  raid  across 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  405 

the  Border,  in  whose  ears  the  clash  of  steel  and 
tramp  of  horses  was  always  music,  held  coldly  aloof 
when  there  was  offered  to  them  the  chance  of  the 
finest  raid  that  the  Border  had  known  since  Robert 
the  Bruce's  time.  They  would  take  no  risks.  The 
stakes  were  too  high ;  their  pockets  too  empty. 
Presumably,  too,  they  '  scunnered  '  at  the  Highland 
host  that  was  presented  to  them  as  companions-at- 
arms.  The  Borderer  has  always  been  severely  critical 
of  the  Highlander — c  daft  body,'  the  Highlander  of 
the  Borderer.  The  Borderer,  in  Highland  eyes,  is 
too  canny  by  half,  too  much  of  the  horse-couper ;  to 
the  Borderer  the  Highlander  is  too  much  an  undis- 
ciplined child  of  impulse,  one  who  carries  too  much 
sail  for  his  amount  of  ballast,  and  who  therefore 
cannot  be  '  lippened  to.'  Moreover,  the  Border  was 
now  governed  by  Presbytery.  The  ministers  held 
tight  hands  on  the  people  who  had  once  required  the 
fire  of  Hell  set  to  their  tails,  and  '  the  Pretender,'  as 
they  called  him,  the  champion  of  the  displaced 
Episcopalians,  was  anathema  in  the  eyes  of  the 
stalwart  upholders  of  the  Presbyterian  Kirk. 

The  parish  minister  at  Kelso,  Mr.  Ramsay,  who 
had  held  office  there  also  at  the  time  of  '  the  '15,'  in 
common  with  the  other  parish  ministers  of  Scotland, 
received  orders  from  Government  to  report  on  his 
disaffected  parishioners.  Promptly  the  wily  clergy- 
man summoned  the  Jacobite  gentlemen  of  his  parish 


406  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

and  laid  the  document  before  them.  Did  any  of 
them  know  of  any  persons  disloyal  to  King  George  ? 
he  asked.  Unhesitatingly  they  replied  that  every 
friend  and  acquaintance  that  they  owned  was  loyal. 

4  Well,  well,'  said  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ramsay,  '  I  am 
exceedingly  glad  to  hear  so.  Had  there  been  any 
disloyal  persons  in  the  place,  I  am  sure  that  you  must 
have  known  them ;  and  I  shall  now  acquaint  the 
Privy  Council  that  I  have  consulted  with  the  most 
intelligent  of  my  parishioners,  who  assure  me  that 
the  people  here  are  all  well-affected  to  His  Majesty's 
Government.' 

Perhaps  Mr.  Ramsay  may  have  had  something  to 
do  with  the  fact  that  neither  in  the  '15  nor  the  '45  did 
one  man  from  Kelso  put  his  neck  in  jeopardy  for  the 
Stuart  cause.  The  Jacobite  gentlemen  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood were  willing  enough  to  meet  the  Prince  by 
stealth,  to  assure  him  of  their  devotion,  and  to  pledge 
him  deep  at  their  every  meeting.  That  ever-tactful, 
ever-courteous  Prince  received  their  homage  with 
gracious  politeness,  and  one  can  but  hope  that  through 
the  skins  of  some  of  those  who  were  so  willing  to 
drink  to  his  success,  so  unwilling  to  lift  a  hand  to 
hasten  it,  the  Prince's  verbal  rapier-thrust  may  have 
penetrated. 

4 1  believe  you,  gentlemen,  I  believe  you,'  he  said 
in  response  to  a  vociferous  toast.  '  I  have  drinking 
friends,  but  few  fighting  ones,  in  Kelso.' 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  407 

But  there  were  fewer  toasts  drunk  than  prayers 
offered  in  the  Lowlands  just  then.  The  Highland 
host  was  a  ravaging  army  of  the  uncovenanted  in 
the  eyes  of  those  god-fearing  Borderers  with  a  regard 
for  their  own  property.  Cattle  and  horses  were  driven 
for  concealment  into  deep  cleughs  and  glens  that 
had  many  a  time  been  used  for  the  same  purpose  in 
the  old  raiding  days.  There  are  those  who  can  repeat 
to  us  now  the  recollections  of  their  grandparents  who, 
as  children,  watched,  round-eyed  and  wondering, 
the  hasty  hiding  of  live-stock,  the  digging  of  holes 
to  bury  family  plate  and  other  belongings.  The 
Duke  of  Roxburghe  had  his  plate  and  other  valuables 
carted  by  night  from  Floors  Castle  and  buried  in  the 
stackyard  of  Caverton  Mill  by  his  tenant,  David 
M'Dougall.  Nor  were  the  fears  of  the  people  of  the 
districts  that  the  army  marched  through  without 
good  grounds.  The  Highlanders'  motto  apparently 
was  that  Heaven  helps  those  who  help  themselves, 
and  they  helped  themselves  most  liberally.  There 
is  many  a  tradition  of  housewives  whose  baking  was 
interrupted  by  the  invasion  of  caterans  who  were 
ready  to  eat  her  bannocks  hot,  half-raw ;  of  toll 
levied  on  the  henroost,  stable,  and  byre,  and  even 
on  the  pockets  of  peaceful  travellers. 

'  O  up  yon  heathery  mountain, 

And  down  yon  scroggy  glen, 
We  daurna  gang  a-milking, 
For  Charlie  and  his  men.' 


408  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

At  Smailholm,  the  story  goes,  a  party  of  them  over- 
hauled the  house  of  a  tailor,  and  when  one  of  them 
was  about  to  cut  up  a  web  of  homespun  that  had 
taken  his  fancy,  the  goodwife  earnestly  remonstrated. 

4  A  day  '11  come  when  ye  '11  hae  tae  pey  for  that,' 
she  solemnly  assured  him. 

Scissors  in  hand,  Tonal  paused. 

'  An'  when  will  she  pe  hafing  to  do  that  ?  '  he  asked. 

'  At  the  Last  Day,'  said  she. 

4  Py  Cot,  an'  that  will  pe  a  fery  goot  long  credit,' 
said  the  robber.  '  She  wass  going  to  pe  only  taking 
a  coat,  but  now  she  will  pe  taking  a  waistcoat  as  well.' 

At  Todshawhaugh,  up  the  valley  of  the  Borthwick, 
a  pious  lady  l  was  then  keeping  a  diary  of  the  adven- 
tures of  her  soul — a  sort  of  spiritual  temperature 
chart.  While  Highland  hearts  were  rejoicing,  she 
went  to  her  knees.  The  Prince — never  mentioned 
by  name — was  sent  as  a  *  Just  Judgment '  upon  her 
and  other  *  great  sinners '  by  a  righteously  provoked 
Deity.  It  would  seem  as  though  all  the  members  of 
her  family  did  not  see  quite  eye  to  eye  with  her,  for, 
while  lamenting  her  own  iniquities  which  have  so 
tempted  Providence,  she  specially  mourns  for  *  the 
sins  of  others,  and  the  sins  of  the  family  that  I  live  in.9 
In  1746,  in  devoutly  thankful  frame,  she  writes  of  her 
gratitude  for  personal  mercies,  for  family  mercies, 
and  for  national  mercies.  *  It  was  my  desire  that 

1  The  writer's  great-great-great-grandmother. 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  409 

the  World  might  ring  in  prayers  and  praises  and 
thanksgivings — and  it  was  my  desire  that  there 
might  non  go  to  Thy  house  pretending  to  be  thankfull 
and  yet  displeased  at  that  great  deliverance  that  the 
Lord  had  wrought  for  us.' 

A  husband,  a  son,  or  a  daughter  with  leanings 
towards  the  white  cockade  was  probably  the  good 
lady's  thorn  in  the  flesh. 

While  some  Borderers  toasted  and  did  nothing, 
and  others  wrestled  in  prayer,  Ker  of  Graden  kept  up 
the  old  reputation  of  the  men  of  the  Marches  by 
scouting  along  the  Tweed  from  Kelso,  under  Flodden 
Edge  as  far  as  Wooler,  to  delude  the  enemy  into 
thinking  that  the  entire  column  was  now  on  the 
march  towards  Newcastle.  On  November  6th  the 
Prince's  army  crossed  the  Tweed  and  marched  to 
Jedburgh.  At  Jedburgh  the  Prince  stayed  at  the 
hoijfe  then  known  as  Blackballs.  Nos.  9  and  11 
Castlegate  are  its  present  more  prosaic  designation. 
Ere  they  reached  the  town,  so  tradition  says,  another 
army  passed  before  them — a  phantom  army  that  none 
could  see.  Superstitious  listeners  could  swear  that 
they  heard  the  beat  of  drums,  and  believed  that  fames 
or  witches  wielded  the  sticks.  Jedburgh  had  ever 
been  a  witch-ridden  town,  and  the  witches  who  in 
other  days  had  been  seen  dancing  on  the  roof  of  the 
Abbey  were  believed  to  be  responsible.  Were  they 
leading  Prince  Charlie  to  his  doom  ?  An  old  lady 


410  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

who  lived  not  so  very  long  ago  could  remember  watch- 
ing the  Jacobite  dragoons  grooming  their  horses. 
'  Steady  there,  Cope  ! '  '  Stand  about,  Cope  !  '  she 
heard  them  say  as  they  rubbed  them  down. 

Early  next  morning  the  column  marched  on,  losing, 
by  their  promptitude,  one  good  recruit.  Mr.  Davidson, 
father  of  Scott's  '  Dandie  Dinmont,'  rode  into  Jed- 
burgh  from  Charlieshope  when  the  army  was  already 
well  on  its  way,  and  had  to  return  home.  Prince 
Charlie  led  his  men  when  they  marched  out  of  Jed- 
burgh,  over  the  Knot  o'  the  Gate,  into  Liddesdale, 
and  returned  when  they  were  clear  of  the  town  to 
whip  in  deserters,  galloping  back,  when  he  was 
assured  that  all  went  well,  to  take  his  place  in  the 
van. 

Down  the  valley  of  the  Liddel  the  army  came, 
marching,  the  most  of  them,  not  compactly,  as  a 
column  that  meant  to  fight,  but  rather  as  a  straggling 
body  of  marauders  bent  on  plunder.  An  old  shepherd, 
Jardine  by  name,  was  seized  by  three  of  them,  but 
set  free  as  a  valueless  prey.  At  Hudhouse  some  sheep 
were  stolen,  cut  up,  and  boiled  in  the  only  utensil 
that  came  handy,  an  iron  pot  used  for  tar  for  '  buisting' 
sheep.  Naturally  tar  did  not  suit  the  Highland 
constitution,  and  one  of  the  feasters  died.  The 
plundered  shepherd,  Ringan  Armstrong,  was  given 
money  to  buy  a  shroud  for  the  victim  and  to  see  that 
he  received  decent  burial.  The  spot  where  Ringan 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  411 

buried  the  man  is  known  as  '  The  Highlandman's 
Grave  '  to  this  day. 

A  prettier  tale  than  that  of  the  greed  of  the 
Highlanders  is  that  of  a  little  girl  from  Ancrum, 
who  met  on  the  road  near  Jedburgh  an  army  of 
terrifying  warlike  men.  She  knew  not  where  to 
run  and  hide,  and  while  she  hesitated,  a  little  fright- 
ened rabbit  at  bay,  a  *  bonnie  gentleman '  rode  up 
to  her,  soothed  all  her  fears,  and  stayed  with  her  until 
the  soldiers  were  out  of  sight.  It  may  be  a  mere 
legend,  but  it  matches  well  with  all  the  other  tales 
of  Prince  Charlie,  whose  gentle  deeds  gave  him  so 
firm  a  hold  on  the  hearts  of  those  who  had  once  come 
within  his  spell. 

Amongst  his  few  Border  followers  he  numbered  a 
Scott — Charles  Scott,  brother  to  the  laird  of  Gorren- 
berry,  a  gallant  soldier  and  a  faithful  friend.  Scott's 
servant,  Charlie  Miller,  was  with  him  through  the 
whole  campaign,  and  had  even  won  gracious  speech 
from  him  whom  he  always  regarded  as  his  rightful 
sovereign.  In  his  old  age  Miller  acted  as  beadle 
in  one  of  the  kirks  of  Hawick.  When  he  came,  one 
Sabbath  morning,  to  escort  the  minister  from  vestry 
to  pulpit,  he  was  told  of  the  death  of  Prince  Charles 
Edward  Stuart. 

'  Eh,  doctor  1 '  he  said,  '  A  wuss  ye  hadnae  telt  us 
till  the  efternune.  Ah  '11  get  nae  gude  o'  the  sermon 
the  day.  Gin  it  had  been  the  German  lairdie  there 


412  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

wad  ha'  been  little  maen  made  for  him,  but  there  '11 
be  mony  a  wae  hert  forbye  mine  the  day  !  ' 

At  Spittal-on-Rule  some  of  the  cavalry  who  went 
by  Hawick  and  Langholm  encamped,  and  during  the 
night  a  daring  Borderer  slipped  into  the  camp  and 
stole  a  bag  containing  the  Paymaster's  money.  The 
Jacobites  made  no  bones  about  their  intention  of 
burning  the  village  of  Denholm  to  the  ground  if  the 
money  was  not  returned,  and  back  it  speedily  came. 
Prince  Charlie  himself  led  his  men  by  the  Rule  valley 
to  Haggiehaugh,  now  known  as  Larriston,  on  the 
south  side  of  the  Liddel. 

The  Border  ladies  appear  in  a  rather  more  heroic 
light  in  the  history  of  that  march  to  the  south  than 
do  their  much  more  prudent  spouses.  The  laird  of 
Larriston  had  betaken  himself  elsewhere  when  the 
Prince  arrived,  but  his  wife  remained  to  do  the  honours, 
and  did  them  well.  The  army  slept,  wrapped  in  their 
plaids,  on  the  ground  near  the  house,  and  did  them- 
selves handsomely  on  sheep  and  cattle  which  were 
sold  to  them  by  Charlie  Scott,  an  enterprising  farmer. 
They  kept  him  to  help  them  to  slaughter  the  animals, 
and  gave  him  a  guinea  for  his  trouble.  But  not  for 
long  was  that  guinea  in  his  possession.  He  was 
followed  from  the  camp  by  some  caterans  with  a 
large  horse-pistol,  and  had  to  give  up  his  gold  to  them 
with  as  good  a  grace  as  possible.  Later  in  the  day, 
the  same  men,  or  some  of  their  kind,  met  with  one  of 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  413 

the  clan  Armstrong,  and  tried  by  the  persuasion  of 
a  pistol  to  get  from  him  his  money.  But  Armstrong 
was  true  to  his  name.  He  smote  the  pistol  out  of  the 
hand  of  the  man  who  pointed  it  at  him,  expressed 
himself  forcibly  as  to  the  value  he  put  on  a  parcel  of 
Hielandmen,  and  carried  home  the  trophy  as  memento 
of  '  the  Rebellion.'  A  glen  not  far  from  Larriston 
was  used  as  hiding-place  for  cattle  and  other  live- 
stock, and  for  every  sort  of  valuable,  by  the  terrified 
inhabitants  of  the  district,  and  fortunately  for  them 
the  army  marched  past  unconscious  of  the  cache 
they  had  missed.  In  the  morning  the  Prince,  riding 
a  beautiful  black  horse,  led  his  column  on  again; 
and  on  they  came,  making  hay  while  the  sun  from 
Mars  was  shining.  Those  Border  hills  and  moors 
they  regarded  with  a  mercantile  eye.  Bacchus,  as 
well  as  Mars,  was  a  god  worthy  of  consideration, 
and  there  was  many  an  ideal  spot  in  that  lonely 
country  for  the  establishment  of  a  still  which  the 
gaugers  would  find  it  hard  to  discover.  Quite  a 
lively  secret  industry,  run  by  Highlanders,  was 
started  on  the  Borders  when  Prince  Charlie  was 
once  more  across  the  sea.  At  the  Cleughhead  these 
lively  clansmen  stole  a  good  grey  mare,  descendant 
of  one  who  had  borne  Jock  o'  the  Syde  in  safety 
from  Newcastle  gaol  in  the  old  reiving  times.  Its 
owner  might  thole  other  losses,  but  this  was  too 
much  for  him,  and  he  followed  the  army,  keeping  his 


414  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

horse  always  in  view,  until  at  the  evening  halt  he  saw 
a  boy  riding  it  barebacked  to  water.  This  was  his 
chance.  The  boy  was  easily  disposed  of,  the  owner 
speedily  up,  and  the  miles  between  herself  and  her 
stable  were  not  long  in  being  covered  by  that  good 
grey  mare  with  her  happy  master  on  her  back. 

The  detachment  that  went  by  Hawick  visited 
Minto  on  the  way,  but  the  laird,  Gilbert  Elliot,  Lord 
Justice-Clerk — no  friend  at  any  time  to  the  Stuart 
cause — thought  it  expedient  to  be  elsewhere  when 
they  called.  Whilst  he  found  shelter  amongst  the 
crags  of  Minto,  his  daughter,  Jean  Elliot — she  who 
wrote  '  The  Flowers  o'  the  Forest ' — hospitably  enter- 
tained the  uninvited  guests. 

On  November  8th,  when  the  Prince's  column 
crossed  the  Border  near  Langholm,  the  Prince 
himself  was  the  first  to  ford  the  Esk.  The  High- 
landers unsheathed  their  claymores  and  gave  a  great 
shout.  They  were  in  England  now,  and  might  soon 
expect  to  come  to  close  quarters  with  the  Sassenach 
followers  of  the  'wee  German  lairdie.'  As  he  drew 
his  claymore,  Lochiel  wounded  his  hand.  It  was  an 
omen  that  his  men  did  not  like.  Did  any  clansman 
who  saw  the  blood  flow  from  his  chief's  hand  have 
dreams  that  night  of  the  blood-stained  grass  on  the 
moor  of  Culloden  ?  At  Reddings,  a  farmhouse  which 
is  now  rebuilt,  they  spent  the  night,  and  next  day, 
near  Longtown,  they  were  rejoined  by  the  cavalry. 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  415 

Two  miles  west  from  Carlisle,  at  Moorhouse,  the 
old  stronghold  of  William  Rufus,  they  lay  all  night, 
and  on  the  following  day,  in  a  heavy  fog,  they  laid 
siege  to  Carlisle.  The  Deputy-Mayor,  a  boastful 
gentleman,  Pattison  by  name,  proudly  declined  to 
surrender.  With  a  small  force  of  invalids,  and  the 
Cumberland  and  Westmoreland  militia  to  back  him, 
he  played  with  his  guns  on  Prince  Charlie's  men 
from  his  walled  town  with  its  strong  castle.  No 
harm  was  done  either  way ;  but  when,  on  the  evening  of 
the  10th,  Prince  Charlie,  with  the  Highland  division, 
went  off  to  Brampton,  ten  miles  further  east,  in  the 
hope  that  the  false  report  that  Wade  was  advancing 
from  the  west  was  reliable  information,  Mr.  Deputy- 
Mayor  felt  it  was  time  to  claim  from  a  grateful  nation 
the  reward  of  his  supreme  gallantry.  To  London 
he  despatched  the  joyful  news  that  he,  Pattison,  had 
frightened  away  the  rebel  army,  and  begged  the 
Powers  to  remember  that  he  was  no  Scottish  Paterson, 
but  one  Pattison,  a  true-hearted  Englishman.  But 
Pattison,  the  true-hearted,  had  thrown  up  his  hat 
too  soon.  On  the  13th  the  Highlanders  were  back, 
Lord  George  Murray  and  the  Duke  of  Perth  working 
in  their  shirts  at  the  trenches  along  with  their  men. 
On  the  evening  of  the  14th  the  white  flag  was  hung 
out  by  the  gallant  Deputy-Mayor  of  Carlisle.  The 
Prince's  army  marched  in  and  took  possession,  but 
it  seemed  an  empty  victory,  for  during  the  days 


416  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

spent  in  Carlisle  there  were  many  desertions  and  only 
two  recruits.  The  people  of  Cumberland  were  then 
ingenuous  folk — the  Lakes  had  no  special  vogue  in 
those  days — and  by  them  the  tales  of  the  barbarities 
of  the  Highlanders  were  received  with  a  simple  and 
implicit  faith.  Prince  Charlie  heard  a  rustling  in  his 
room,  and  on  hunting  for  the  cause  found  a  little 
girl  of  six  hidden  under  his  bed.  Her  mother  screamed 
to  the  Prince  and  his  aides-de-camp  to  spare  her 
child,  the  only  survivor  of  a  family  of  seven.  '  She 
had  been  assured  from  credible  sources,'  says  Murray, 
4  that  the  Highlanders  were  a  savage  sort  of  people 
and  ate  all  young  children.' 

The  Lowlanders  through  whose  country  the  other 
contingent  of  the  Jacobite  army  had  marched  on  its 
way  to  Carlisle  were  not  likely  to  be  much  more  com- 
plimentary on  the  subject  of  Prince  Charlie's  men. 
4  Cruel  plunder  '  was  what  Perth  and  Tullibardine 
complained  of  in  their  men  on  the  march  to  Moffat, 
and  a  man  of  Perth's  regiment  was  court-martialled. 
At  Cairnmuir,  in  Peeblesshire,  some  caterans  found, 
as  was  usual,  the  head  of  the  house  from  home, 
entered  the  mansion  without  a  '  By  your  leave,' 
and  demanded  food  and  drink  in  large  quantity  and 
at  once  from  the  lady  of  Cairnmuir. 

'  By  what  right  do  you  force  your  way  into  a  lady's 
room  with  your  bonnets  on  your  heads  ?  '  sternly 
demanded  the  angry  Lady  Cairnmuir,  and  bonnets 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  417 

were  quickly  doffed,  and  a  generous  hospitality  given 
in  return.  It  is  sad  to  relate  that,  later  in  the  day, 
when  the  refreshed  company  was  marching  south- 
wards and  met  their  hostess's  youngest  boy  riding 
home  on  his  pony,  the  pony  was  taken  from  him, 
apparently  without  one  qualm. 

At  Darnick,  near  Melrose,  the  villagers  were  in  a 
state  of  dire  trepidation.  The  elders  of  the  place 
took  council  together,  and  sentinels  were  appointed 
to  give  warning  when  Prince  Charlie's  host  should 
appear.  On  the  road  to  Galashiels  an  imagina- 
tive outpost  saw  the  Jacobite  army  advancing 
one  day  in  all  the  pomp  and  panoply  of  war,  and 
galloped  to  Darnick  with  the  dreadful  tidings.  Panic 
seized  the  inhabitants.  To  the  shelter  of  the  rising 
ground  above  the  village  they  fled,  led  by  one  of  the 
elders,  his  Andrea  Ferrara  in  his  hand.  When  the 
Highland  host  proved  to  be  nothing  more  menacing 
than  a  drove  of  black  cattle,  the  defenders  of  Darnick 
were  much  affronted  men. 

At  Galashiels  the  cattle  of  the  barony  were  driven 
off  to  a  dene  at  Neidpath,  and  there  concealed  until 
the  Jacobites  had  passed.  The  laird  of  Gala,  like 
many  another  Border  laird,  felt  it  his  duty  to  go 
from  home  at  this  special  juncture,  and  personally 
superintended  the  transport  of  the  cattle.  His  lady 
was  less  discreet.  As  a  detachment  of  the  army 
came  near  Gala  House,  a  handkerchief  was  waved 


418  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

from  a  window,  and  a  lady's  voice  called  '  God  save 
Prince  Charlie  !  Long  live  the  Prince  !  '  '  She  then 
met  them  at  the  door,'  says  Jeffrey,  '  and  gave  them 
a  hearty  welcome,  placed  good  cheer  before  them, 
of  which  they  partook,  and  departed  highly  pleased 
at  the  opinions  expressed  by  the  lady  of  the  mansion.' 
Possibly  this  was  the  portion  of  the  Highland  army 
that  tradition  says  passed  up  the  old  road  on  the 
south  side  of  St.  Mary's  Loch  on  the  way  to  Carlisle. 

From  Carlisle  the  army  went  on  to  Preston,  Prince 
Charlie  marching  with  his  men  through  the  bleak 
country  in  November  weather,  sharing  their  every 
hardship,  meeting  every  discomfort  with  a  glorious 
optimism,  an  unwavering  courage  and  cheerfulness. 
The  sole  of  one  of  his  boots  got  worn  out,  and  at  the 
first  village  he  came  to  he  got  the  blacksmith  to  nail 
a  thin  iron  plate  on  to  the  boot. 

'  I  think  you  are  the  first  man  that  ever  shod  the 
son  of  a  king,'  he  said  with  a  laugh,  as  he  gave  the 
man  his  fee. 

He  had  usually  only  one  meal  a  day,  slept  with  his 
clothes  on,  and  was  up  at  four  each  morning.  Crossing 
Shap  Fell  on  a  dreich  November  day,  the  bitter  cold 
was  almost  too  much  for  him,  and  for  miles  he  walked, 
half  asleep,  holding  on  to  the  shoulder-belt  of  one  of 
the  Ogilvies. 

Preston,  Manchester,  Stockport,  Derby,  that  was  the 
order  of  the  Prince's  itinerary.  Small  satisfaction  he 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  419 

could  have  got  from  the  results  of  his  march.  A  few 
mounted  the  white  cockade.  A  score  or  two  of  recruits 
came  to  his  standard.  Women  were  always  ready  to 
give  him  all  that  was  theirs  to  give.  A  forlorn  hope 
appealed  to  them  as  it  did  not  to  the  '  stronger '  sex. 

At  Derby  the  death-note  to  the  Prince's  hopes 
was  sounded.  While  he  was  pondering  which  was 
the  most  fitting  dress  to  wear  when  he  entered  London 
— whether  to  enter  on  foot  or  on  horseback,  for  '  he 
d'd  not  doubt  that  the  justice  of  his  cause  would 
prevail,'  his  staff  was  deciding  that  no  course  was 
open  to  him  but  retreat.  Not  one  man  joined  him  at 
Derby ;  the  combined  British  forces  that  he  had  to 
reckon  with  amounted  to  thirty  thousand  men.  Wade 
was  at  Wetherby,  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  at  Lich- 
field,  and  a  third  army  was  gathering  at  Finchley 
Common  to  protect  London.  All  that  the  Prince 
could  do  he  did,  to  urge  on  to  win  all  or  to  lose  all 
that  handful  of  faithful  followers. 

4  Rather  than  go  back,  I  would  I  were  twenty  feet 
underground ! '  he  said,  and  when  finally  he  had  to 
bow  his  head  to  their  policy,  his  heart  also  bowed  and 
broke.  '  Cast  down '  he  was,  according  to  Lord  George 
Murray. 

'  Wha  wadna  fecht  for  Charlie  ? 

Wha  wadna  draw  the  sword  ? 
Wha  wadna  up  and  rally 

At  their  royal  prince's  word  ? ' 

says  the  old  song. 


420  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

But  the  great  god  Expediency  was  stronger  than  love, 
stronger  than  loyalty  to  an  almost  hopeless  cause.  Had 
it  been  possible  for  his  enthusiasm  to  carry  his  followers 
on,  up  to  the  very  gates  of  Valhalla  itself,  how  blessed 
a  thing  it  would  have  been  for  the  most  tragic  prince 
of  history.  But  the  majority  was  too  much  for  him. 
Prudence  and  common-sense  overrode  the  courage 
that  dared  all  things,  and  lost  for  Prince  Charlie  his 
crown,  his  happiness,  and  his  own  soul. 

In  rainy  weather  that  dreary  retreat  to  Scotland 
was  made.  On  December  20th,  late  in  the  evening, 
with  the  Esk  in  red  spate,  the  Jacobite  army  forded 
it,  a  hundred  men  abreast.  Only  their  heads  and 
shoulders  were  seen  as  they  waded  through,  but  they 
held  up  the  tails  of  their  coats  to  keep  them  dry,  and 
once  they  were  across  they  danced  reels  on  the  bank 
until  they  were  warm  again. 

One  man  was  swept  away  and  was  rapidly  drowning, 
but  as  he  was  carried  past  Prince  Charlie,  who  crossed 
the  ford  on  horseback,  the  Prince  caught  him  by  the 
hair,  at  the  same  time  shouting  in  his  scanty  Gaelic 
'  Cohear  !  cohear  ! ' — '  Help,  help  ! ' 

A  Sunday  was  spent  at  Moffat,  most  decorously, 
for  the  Episcopal  chaplains  who  marched  with  the 
army  held  service,  and  many,  believing  a  battle  to 
be  imminent,  took  the  Holy  Sacrament.  Those  who 
re-entered  Scotland  by  way  of  Dumfries  did  not  fail 
to  demand  and  receive  payment  of  rightful  debts 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  421 

incurred  on  their  march  to  the  south.  The  Dumfries 
people,  Seceders  of  Galloway,  Nithsdale,  and  Annan- 
dale,  had  raised  a  little  army  and  looted  the  Jacobite 
baggage-waggons.  Now  they  were  heavily  fined,  and 
may  have  regretted  their  temerity.  On  Christmas 
Day  the  Prince's  army  marched  into  Glasgow  with 
scarcely  a  complete  suit  of  tartans  or  a  whole  pair  of 
shoes  amongst  them. 

Yet,  at  Glasgow,  the  Prince's  hopes  were  allowed 
to  rise  high  once  more,  and  on  the  17th  of  January 
an  easy  victory  at  Falkirk  seemed  to  encourage  him 
in  his  belief  that  the  gods  were  with  him. 

Three  months  later  came  the  black  tragedy  of  the 
battle  of  Culloden.  It  was  a  sleety,  grey  April  day, 
with  an  occasional  fierce  drift  of  snow,  and  a  strong 
nor '-caster  blowing,  when  Prince  Charlie  led  his 
followers  to  dire  defeat.  With  starvation,  cruel 
ruin,  merciless  suffering,  and  more  merciful  death 
had  the  Highlanders  who  fought  for  the  Prince  whom 
they  held  for  their  rightful  sovereign  to  pay  for  their 
share  in  that  gloomy  day,  and  for  the  months  of 
campaigning  that  preceded  it. 

On  April  18th  the  Prince  took  to  the  heather,  a 
hunted  rebel;  and  after  five  months  of  hardship, 
gallantly  borne,  he  sailed  for  France  again.  He  had 
dared  all  and  lost  all,  and  that  while  youth  might 
still  have  held  out  to  him  her  golden  promises  and 
highest  hopes.  One  would  be  glad  if  Prince  Charlie 


422  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

had  died  at  Culloden.  Happier  for  all  those  in  whose 
hearts  he  found  an  unalterable  place  had  he  slept, 
still  and  cold,  on  the  field  that  night,  the  snowdrift 
on  his  brown  hair,  and  in  his  heart  the  belief  that  his 
Sangreal  might  yet  be  attained,  that  still  he  might 
gain  back  for  his  line  their  own  again. 

Through  many  a  year  he  dreed  his  weird,  each  year 
that  passed  carrying  with  it  a  more  piteous  tale  of  a 
ruined  life,  a  gallant  promise  most  pitifully  unfulfilled. 

The  pictures  of  him  in  his  radiant  boyhood,  the 
portrait  of  him  as  he  was  ere  he  died,  are  things  to 
make  the  angels  weep  and  the  three  fateful  sisters 
sigh  as  they  spin  their  weariful  web. 

That  asthmatical,  dropsical,  intemperate  old  man, 
who  complained  '  I  am  so  bothered  in  the  head,' — 
was  that,  indeed,  c  Bonnie  Prince  Charlie  '  ? 

One  who  visited  him  in  his  last  days  talked  to  him 
of  his  triumphal  progress  through  Scotland,  and  of 
what  came  after.  When  he  spoke  of  the  payment  for 
that  hour  of  glory  by  the  executions,  the  brutalities 
after  Culloden,  the  Prince  fell  into  convulsions. 

His  daughter  Charlotte,  an  utterly  devoted  and 
loving  daughter  and  a  faithful  friend  to  the  very  end, 
came  into  the  room  and  found  him. 

4  Oh,  sir,  what  is  this  ?  '  she  said  to  his  guest. 
4  You  must  have  been  speaking  to  my  father  about 
Scotland  and  the  Highlanders.  No  one  dares  to 
mention  those  subjects  in  his  presence.' 


PRINCE  CHARLIE  423 

When  he  died  on  January  31st,  1788,  his  daughter 
survived  him  only  by  a  few  months. 

A  broken-down,  broken-hearted,  pitiful  old  man 
he  was  when  the  end  came.  But  it  is  not  as  an  old 
man  that  he  lives  now  in  Scottish  hearts.  The  gods 
are  sometimes  merciful.  So  long  as  the  gracious 
figure  of  the  young  Chevalier  holds  its  own  in  the 
imaginations  of  the  race  whose  king  he  would  fain 
have  been,  one  cannot  say  that  Romance  is  dead. 
So  long  as  hearts  grow  warm  and  eyes  are  ready  to 
fill  when  the  old  Jacobite  songs  are  sung,  surely,  after 
all,  Prince  Charlie  did  not  fail  to  win  a  kingdom. 

'  Will  he  no'  come  back  again  ? 
Will  he  no'  come  back  again  ? 
Better  lo'ed  he  '11  never  be, 
And  will  he  no'  come  back  again  ?' 

'  A  wee  bird  cam  to  oor  ha'  door, 

He  warbled  sweet  and  clearly, 
An'  aye  the  o'ercome  o'  his  sang 

Was  "  Wae  's  me  for  Prince  Charlie  ! " 
Oh !  when  I  heard  the  bonny,  bonny  bird, 

The  tears  cam  drapping  rarely, 
I  took  my  bannet  aff  my  head, 

For  weel  I  lo'ed  Prince  Charlie.* 


424. 


A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 


CHAPTER  XIII 

SIR  WALTER'S  DAY 

'It  is  the  memory  which  the  soldier  leaves  behind  him,  like  the  long  trail 
of  light  that  follows  the  sunken  sun.' — SIB  WALTER  SCOTT. 

THERE  is  one  of  the  metrical  Psalms  that,  more  than 
almost  any  other  Psalm,  takes  those  who  sing  it 
back  to  the  '  Killing  Time.' 

'.  .  .  cruel  men 

Against  us  furiously 
Rose  up  in  wrath, 

To  make  of  us  their  prey. 

But  bless'd  be  God, 

Who  doth  us  safely  keep, 
And  hath  not  giv'n 

Us  for  a  living  prey 
Unto  their  teeth 

And  bloody  cruelty.' 

So  runs  the  '  Old  Hundred  and  Twenty-fourth,'  and 
so  sang  the  Covenanters,  the  men  of  the  moss-hags. 
We  can  almost  see,  as  we  listen  to  its  lilting  wail,  the 
scarlet  coats  of  the  dragoons  as  the  'persecutors' 
gallop  across  the  moors,  the  yet  redder  stains  of  the 
blood  of  the  innocent  on  snow  or  on  heather.  And 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  425 

the  caves  on  Cheviots  and  by  Lowland  rivers  are 
peopled  again  by  those  who  have  escaped  sudden 
death  on  the  hillside,  or  crueller  death  in  the  Grass- 
market,  and  who  raise  thankful  voices  in  a  Psalm  of 
David. 

But  one  of  the  biggest  mistakes  that  are  made  by 
the  God-fearing  people  of  to-day,  is  that  of  imagining 
that,  in  past  days,  cruel  men  and  bloody  cruelties 
were  only  to  be  found  in  the  ranks  of  those  who  were 
followers  of  *  Claverse,'  the  '  ruffian  desperado,  who 
rode  a  goblin  horse,  was  proof  against  shot,  and  in 
league  with  the  Devil.'  For  if  we  compare  the  most 
merciless  cruelties  that  were  practised  on  the  Cove- 
nanting folk,  we  can  find  none  so  bad  as  those  inflicted 
for  many  generations  on  pitiful,  helpless  creatures 
who  were  harried  into  self-accusing  dementia  by  those 
who  called  themselves  God's  ministers.  In  England, 
in  Scotland,  in  America,  the  witch-finding  time  is  one 
that  we  would  fain  forget.  It  is  an  ugly  period  of 
history,  a  time  when  mercy  and  justice  seemed  to 
sleep,  and  when  the  weak  ones  of  the  earth — half- 
witted men,  feeble  old  women,  hysterical  girls — were 
cunningly  stalked,  hideously  tortured,  and  finally 
done  to  death  in  the  cruellest  fashion  that  fiendishly 
cruel  minds  could  devise.  Ugliest  part  of  it  all  it  is, 
that  those  crimes  were  committed  by  religious  people 
who  took  upon  themselves  the  noble  duty  of  stamping 
out  witchcraft  from  the  land. 


426  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

At  the  door  of  James  vi.  of  Scotland  the  instigation 
to  much  of  the  persecution  may  be  laid.  He  was 
weakly  credulous,  ignorantly  superstitious.  The  dis- 
covery of  a  witch  or  warlock  practising  upon  his 
royal  self  was,  of  course,  the  discovery  of  a  hideous 
crime,  which  the  most  sanguinary  death  could  not 
adequately  repay.  The  discovery  of  such  a  person 
practising  upon  others  was  to  him  very  much  what  a 
new,  well-authenticated  '  ghost  story  '  is  to  a  member 
of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  at  the  present 
day.  Grisly  details  had  to  be  furnished  for  his  royal 
behalf.  He  himself  was  more  than  ready  greedily  to 
interview  the  offenders.  A  '  covine  '  of  witches  to  be 
tortured  and  burned  was  well  known  by  his  faithful 
subjects  to  be  a  dainty  dish  to  set  before  this  King. 

On  the  Border,  where  superstition  has  always  held 
its  own,  the  proportion  of  witches  run  to  earth  was 
a  very  large  one.  Scarcely  a  Border  town  or  village 
that  has  not  near  it  still  its  '  Witches'  Knowe,'  where 
witches  once  held  their  revels,  or  where  helpless 
women  were  burned  at  the  stake.  On  the  steeple  of 
Jedburgh  Abbey  they  used  to  dance  once  on  a  day. 

It  was  an  easy  matter  to  track  the  offenders.  A  little 
blue  mark  found  on  the  body  was  never  a  mere  inno- 
cent bruise  in  suspected  cases.  It  was  the  '  witches' 
mark,'  placed  there  by  the  foul  fiend  himself.  It  was 
a  simple  thing  then  for  one  man  or  woman  to  vent 
his  or  her  spite  upon  another.  To  the  authorities  of 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  427 

the  place,  usually  to  the  minister  of  the  parish,  they 
had  only  got  to  complain  that  they,  their  children, 
their  cattle  or  their  horses  were  bewitched  by  a  neigh- 
bour. Promptly  the  witches'  mark  was  sought  for, 
tortures  to  elicit  confession  were  employed,  and,  if  the 
strain  was  kept  up  long  enough,  the  wretched  woman 
would  try  to  save  her  life  by  pouring  forth  an  incoher- 
ent tissue  of  madly  impossible  tales  of  her  dealings 
with  the  Powers  of  Darkness.  Then,  naturally, 
death  was  her  sentence,  while  for  those  who  had  the 
strength  to  persist  in  denial,  torture  was  piled  upon 
torture,  and,  finally,  a  bloodthirsty  mob,  having 
done  their  evil  worst  without  taking  the  life  of  their 
helpless  victim,  burned  to  death  their  '  living  prey.' 

*  Lord,  take  me  out  of  the  Devil's  hands,  and  put 
me  into  God's,'  was  the  prayer  of  one  old  woman  when 
the  napkin  had  covered  her  eyes  ere  she  was  *  justified  ' 
on  an  Edinburgh  gallows. 

In  Berwickshire,  thanks  to  Home  of  Renton,  the 
Lord  Polwarth  of  that  time,  and  the  Rev.  John  Dysart, 
minister  of  Coldingham,  who  seemed  to  be  specially 
gifted  in  tracking  down  witches,  the  number  of  witches 
burned  before  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century 
was  a  large  one.  Before  1694  Home  of  Renton,  who 
was  then  sheriff,  had  '  caused  burn  seven  or  eight '  of 
them.  At  the  Kiln  Knowe  at  Coldingham  they  paid 
the  penalty  of  their  suspected  traffickings  with  the 
Devil.  From  the  Witches'  Knowe  at  Lamberton  the 


428  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

winds  carried  the  black  smoke  of  their  burnings  across 
the  grey  sea.  Auchencraw,  a  tiny  village  some  miles 
from  Coldingham,  retains  the  notoriety  of  past  evil 
doing  by  the  proverb  '  Auchencraw  for  witches.' 
Lauder  has  preserved  in  its  municipal  records  a  bill 
for  burning  a  witch.  £92,  14s.  Scots  was  the  total, 
less  '  twentie  seven  pundis  Scotis,  qlk  the  said  umqle 
Margret  Dinham  had  of  her  ain.'  Selkirkshire  and 
Roxburghshire  were  little  behind  Berwickshire  in  their 
zeal. 

Of  the  last  of  the  witches  of  Bowden  parish,  tradi- 
tion tells  a  piteous  tale.  She  was,  they  say,  a  '  well 
doing  body,'  suspected  of  the  crimes  she  was  accused  of, 
Heaven  alone  knows  why,  and  one  of  her  vices  in  her 
neighbours'  eyes  was  that  she  was  constantly  spinning, 
spinning,  silently,  ceaselessly.  It  may  have  been 
that,  as  she  span,  she  had  '  dwams,'  like  Tod  Lapraik, 
but,  be  that  as  it  may,  she  was  condemned  to  death  by 
an  irate  populace.  The  day  of  the  burning  came,  and, 
as  on  hanging  days,  the  crowds  gathered  from  all  parts, 
yet  the  witch  span  on.  At  length  she  rose,  looked  out 
of  her  door  into  the  village  street  at  the  waiting 
murderers,  and  to  those  who  watched  beside  her 
gently  remarked — '  The  folk 's  no'  a'  gaithered  yet. 
I  '11  gang  in  an'  spin  another  turn.' 

What  more  convincing  proof  was  wanted  for  her 
virtuous  neighbours  that  this  was  a  hardened  daughter 
of  Satan,  ready  to  scorn  even  flames  and  fly  off  on  a 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  429 

broomstick  at  a  moment's  notice  ?  Up  the  common  of 
Bowden,  at  the  foot  of  the  Western  Eildon,  there  is  a 
bare  spot  where  the  witch  was  burned,  and  where  the 
grass  never  grew  again. 

In  1719  a  *  witch,'  Meg  Lawson,  was  burned  at 
Selkirk.  They  were  hustling  her  to  the  Gallows 
Knowe  when,  at  the  South  Port,  then  known  as  the 
Foul-brig-port,  she  begged  for  a  drink  of  water  from 
the  stagnant  pool  that  gave  the  Foul  Brig  its  name. 

*Na,  na,'  said  the  man  she  asked,  *  the  drier  ye  are, 
ye  '11  burn  the  better.' 

So  onward  she  was  dragged,  strangled  at  the  stake 
at  the  top  of  the  hill,  then  burned  to  ashes. 

We  are  apt  nowadays  to  share  with  children  their 
conception  of  '  witches.'  A  certain  glamour  of  fairy 
tale  surrounds  them.  We  class  them  along  with  the 
other  delightfully  horrifying  creatures  of  moonlight 
phantasy — 

'  The  warlock  men  and  the  weird  women, 

And  the  fays  of  the  wood  and  the  steep, 
And  the  phantom  hunters  all  were  there, 
And  the  mermaids  of  the  deep.' 

Well  for  us  if  we  can  forget  the  sordid  ugliness 
of  that  '  Killing  Time,'  the  grim  superstition  that 
cloaked  itself  in  religion,  and  which,  with  an  almost 
unimaginable  lust  of  cruelty,  added  to  the  roll  of 
martyrs  the  names  of  many  a  woman  whose  only 
crimes  were  her  plain  features  and  her  feeble  old  age. 


430  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

There  were  other  wild  women  besides  the  witches 
that  Church  and  State  turned  into  unholy  terrors, 
that  were  the  dread  of  children  in  the  Border  in  days 
not  long  since  dead. 

The  gypsies  had  something  more  than  superstition 
behind  them  to  make  them  feared  in  the  lands  they 
wandered  through.  Even  now  one  hears  village 
mothers  threatening  children  with  the  '  tinklers.' 
4 1  '11  gie  ye  to  the  tinklers  ! '  is  a  suggestion  that  is 
still  potent  to  hush  a  child's  screams.  *  As  black  as  a 
tinkler '  means  something  very  black,  and  there  is 
severe  censure  in  the  description  of  a  woman  who 
4  flytes  like  a  tinkler,'  and  condemnation  in  the  term 
4  a  randy  wife,'  or  4  a  randy.'  For  a  randy  originally 
meant  a  rawnee,  or  gypsy  queen — the  Hindustani 
Rani  probably  coming  from  the  same  root. 

Where  the  4  Egyptians '  originally  came  from,  none 
can  tell,  but  already  in  the  twelfth  century  Scotland 
provided  camping  grounds  for  some  of  those  people  of 
mystery,  who  at  first  were  known  as  4  Saracens.'  No 
mere  tramping  tinkers  and  sorners  were  they  then, 
but  a  powerful,  if  small,  detachment  of  an  alien  race, 
who  brought  their  lords  with  them  and  who  claimed 
the  hospitality  of  the  country  they  had  descended 
upon  with  a  magnificent  arrogance  of  vagabondage. 

They  had  talents  of  their  very  own.  They  were  a 
handsome  race,  dark-eyed,  fine-featured,  gracefully 
built,  with  the  little  hands,  and  the  small,  high- 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  431 

instepped  feet  that  are  still  the  gypsies'  pride.  The 
men  were  skilled  blacksmiths,  they  danced  well, 
made  good  music,  and  their  women  claimed  that  they 
could  see  into  the  future.  It  was  but  natural  that 
James  iv.  and  his  successor  should  be  captivated 
by  their  charms.  To  'Antoninus  Gagino,  Count  of 
Little  Egypt,'  James  iv.  in  1505  gave  a  letter  of  com- 
mendation to  the  King  of  Denmark,  and  in  the  same 
year  paid  the  sum  of  £7  to  '  the  Egyptians.'  In  1530 
certain  gypsies  '  dansit  before  the  King  (James  v.)  in 
Halyrudhous '  and  received  through  the  Lord  High 
Treasurer  the  sum  of  forty  shillings,  and  in  1540  James  v. 
subscribed  a  writ  in  favour  of  c  oure  louit  Johnne 
Faa,  Lord  and  Erie  of  Littill  Egipt,'  giving  him  the 
right  to  rule  his  own  people  in  his  own  way.  How 
ill  the  Earl  of  Little  Egypt  succeeded  in  his  rule  was 
shown  by  an  order  in  council  issued  in  the  following 
year,  ordering  banishment,  with  alternatives  of  hang- 
ing, drowning,  scourging,  and  branding  for  the  gypsy 
folk  who  had  made  themselves  a  pest  to  the  country 
of  their  adoption  by  their  neglect  of  the  commandments 
with  regard  to  theft  and  murder.  In  1609  yet  another 
law  was  passed,  condemning  to  banishment  all  known 
4  Egiptians  '  found  in  Scotland,  and  in  1611  Moses  Faa, 
David  Faa,  and  '  Johnne,  alias  Willie  '  Faa,  being 
Egyptians,  and  still  being  in  the  country,  were  taken 
to  the  Boroughmuir  and  hanged,  while  all  their  goods 
were  seized  by  the  Crown.  In  1624,  Captain  John 


432  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Faa  and  seven  of  his  gang,  five  of  them  Faas,  were 
hanged  for  the  crime  of  being  Egyptians ;  and,  a  few 
days  later,  Helen  Faa,  John's  widow,  Lucretia  Faa, 
and  *  other  women  to  the  number  of  eleven,'  were 
drowned  for  the  same  offence. 

Whether  it  was  a  Covenanter,  a  Papist,  a  witch, 
or  a  gypsy  who  was  the  quarry  of  the  lawgivers  of  Scot- 
land, the  hunting  was  ever  efficiently  carried  through 
with  a  most  praiseworthy  conscientiousness  and  an 
admirable  keenness. 

Why  those  Ishmaelites  should  have  chosen  the 
Border  country  for  their  favourite  camping  places, 
it  is  easy  to  see.  From  Kirk  Yetholm,  at  the  foot  of 
*  Muckle  Cheviot,'  there  was  many  a  possible  way  of 
swiftly  retiring  to  England  by  paths  unknown  to  the 
representatives  of  the  law,  and  many  a  safe  hiding- 
place  to  be  found  amongst  the  moors  and  the  blue 
hills  that  slope  upwards  to  the  south. 

According  to  tradition,  the  settlement  of  the  gypsy 
folk  at  Yetholm  came  from  the  fact  that  Captain 
David  Bennet,  proprietor  of  the  barony  of  Grubet 
and  Marlfield,  upon  which  the  village  stands,  had  his 
life  saved  by  a  gypsy  at  the  siege  of  Namur  in  1695. 
While  attacking  a  breach  Captain  Bennet  was  severely 
wounded,  and  all  his  followers  fell  save  one,  Young,  a 
gypsy.  Young  gallantly  defended  his  captain,  and 
when  support  came,  he  himself  made  a  rush  for  the 
wall  and  seized  the  flag.  It  was  all  the  encouragement 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  433 

the  troops  required  ;  they  swarmed  after  him,  and 
Namur  was  taken.  Be  that  as  it  may,  Captain  Bennet 
certainly  built  cottages  for  the  gypsies  on  his  estate 
and  granted  them  to  the  wandering  folk  on  the  most 
favourable  terms.  Nine  times  nineteen  years  was 
the  duration  of  the  feu  conferred  upon  them.  During 
his  life  they  enjoyed  his  protection,  a  protection  con- 
tinued by  his  successors,  Nisbet  of  Dirleton  and  the 
Marquis  of  Tweeddale. 

It  was  at  Kirk  Yetholm  that  the  gypsy  who  has 
been  immortalised  under  the  name  of  Meg  Merrilees 
was  born,  some  time  towards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Jean  Gordon  became  the  wife  of  Patrick 
Faa,  chief  of  the  gypsy  clan,  and  by  him  had  a  family 
of  twelve,  nine  of  them  sons.  In  the  year  1714  the 
career  of  Patrick  Faa  was  brought  to  an  untimely  end. 
Sir  William  Ker  of  Greenhead,  a  branch  of  the  Kers 
of  Fernihirst,  was  proprietor  of  Bridgend,  now  Spring- 
wood  Park — near  Kelso.  He  was  a  man  of  uncom- 
promising rectitude,  as  his  fine  of  £2000,  paid  for  his 
adherence  to  Presbyterianism,  goes  to  prove.  To 
this  unyielding  Covenanter,  the  ill  deeds  of  the 
children  of  Ishmael  must  have  seemed  peculiarly 
odious.  There  was  no  fear  of  God  before  their  eyes. 
They  were  a  frivolous,  light-minded,  light-fingered 
race,  serious  only  when  stealing  or  fighting  had  to  be 
done,  and  when  fighting  was  in  the  wind,  then  danger- 
ous as  savage  animals. 


434  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

Obviously  it  was  the  duty  of  Sir  William,  as  a 
Justice  of  the  Peace,  to  cut  the  claws  of  those  beasts 
of  prey.  For  no  very  obvious  reason,  and  apparently 
as  much  for  future  misdeeds  as  for  past  offences, 
Patrick  Faa,  Jean  Gordon,  and  a  following  of  six, 
mostly  women,  were  seized  one  night  in  a  barn  at 
Sprouston  and  taken  to  Jedburgh,  there  to  have 
meted  out  to  them  the  justice  for  which  that  town 
was  famed.  Old  Janet  Stewart,  Faa's  mother,  sought 
the  laird  of  Bridgend  to  intercede  for  her  son.  With 
her  she  brought  some  testimonials  to  Patrick  Faa's 
character — how  obtained,  and  from  whom,  who  can 
say — but  Sir  William  Ker  angrily  threw  them  away 
and  bade  the  old  woman  begone,  as  a  '  lown.'  A 
little  later  in  the  day  two  young  hinds  met  with  the 
heartsore  old  woman  and  deemed  her  a  fit  butt  for 
their  rustic  wit.  Her  son  and  the  other  Egyptians 
were  to  be  hanged  at  Jethart,  they  had  heard,  so  they 
told  her,  and  other  merry  jests  of  a  like  nature  they 
cracked  at  her  expense.  She  turned  on  them  suddenly. 
1  They  would  hear  other  news  of  it,9  she  darkly  said. 

Three  weeks  later,  in  a  barn  at  Hairstones,  an 
eavesdropping  ploughman  watched  Janet  Stewart 
kneel  and  heard  her  pray  for  c  God's  malison  to  light 
upon  them  that  had  put  her  to  that  trouble.'  On 
being  asked  her  meaning,  she  owned  that  she  referred 
to  Ker  of  Bridgend,  who  had  sent '  her  bairn  '  to  gaol. 

At  midnight,  on  March  25th,  1714,  Janet  Stewart's 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  485 

prayer,  so  recently  proffered,  was  apparently  answered. 
The  mansion-house  of  Bridgend  was  burned  to  the 
ground,  obviously  by  incendiaries,  and  Patrick  Faa, 
looking  over  his  gaol  window  at  Jedburgh,  took  much 
too  lively  an  interest  in  the  news  of  the  event.  For 
that  fire  he  and  his  people  had  to  pay  a  heavy  price. 
As  '  notorious  Egyptians,  thieves,  vagabonds,  sorners, 
masterful  beggars,  and  oppressors,5  and  as  wilful 
fire  raisers  they  were  brought  to  trial.  Old  Janet 
Stewart  was  scourged,  bare-backed,  through  the  town 
with  a  scourge  of  cords  wielded  by  the  common  hang- 
man, thereafter  committed  to  prison  to  recuperate 
for  three  days,  then  exhibited  at  the  Town  Cross  with 
her  left  ear  nailed  to  a  post  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour. 
Her  son  also  endured  scourging  and  had  one  of  his  ears 
nailed  to  a  post  for  half  an  hour  before  both  ears  were 
cut  off.  Then,  along  with  six  women  and  one  man 
who  had  also  endured  the  law's  mercies  of  scourging 
and  branding,  he  was  transported  to  Queen  Anne's 
American  plantations  never  to  return. 

Jean  Gordon,  or  Faa,  thus  widowed,  was  left  to 
bring  up  her  many  sons  as  best  she  could.  Naturally 
they  were  a  fierce  and  lawless  brood,  and  Jean  Gordon 
was  not  one  to  teach  them  the  virtues  of  '  lowliness, 
meekness,  and  long-suffering.'  One  of  her  many  sons, 
Sandy  Faa,  was  murdered  by  another  gypsy,  John- 
stone  by  name.  The  murderer  was  sentenced  to 
death  for  his  crime,  but  made  his  escape  from  prison. 


436  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

There  was,  however,  no  peace  for  him,  for,  according 
to  tradition,  Jean  Gordon  followed  him  like  a  blood- 
hound. To  Holland  she  tracked  him — those  were 
smuggling  days — from  thence  to  Ireland,  and  there 
had  him  seized  and  brought  back  to  Jedburgh,  where 
she  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  him  dangle  on  the 
Gallows  Hill. 

Some  time  afterwards,  so  the  story  goes,  the  farmer 
of  Sourhope,  on  Bowmont  Water,  said  to  her — '  Weel, 
Jean,  ye  have  gotten  Rob  Johnston  hingit  at  last.' 

'  Ay,  gudeman,'  said  Jean,  lifting  her  apron  up  by 
its  corners,  '  an'  that  a'  fu'  o'  gowd  hasna  dune  't.J 

According  to  Sir  Walter,  Jean's  remaining  sons  were 
afterwards  all  condemned  to  die  at  Jedburgh  on  one 
day.  The  jury  could  not  agree  with  regard  to  the 
heinousness  of  their  crimes,  and  their  punishment, 
until  a  sleeping  juryman  suddenly  awoke  and  gave  the 
judgment  of  a  Solomon — c  Hang  them  a?  !  ' 

His  advice  was  followed,  and  the  Faa  family  was 
sent  wholesale  to  the  gallows. 

4  The  Lord  help  the  innocent  in  a  day  like  this ! ' 
said  Jean,  who  was  present  when  the  verdict  was  given. 

A  staunch  friend  and  a  cruel  enemy  was  Jean 
Gordon,  as  all  traditions  of  the  fierce  old  gypsy 
go  to  prove.  She  was  an  accomplished  and  hard- 
hearted robber,  but  she  never  robbed  those  who  had 
been  her  friends,  nor  does  legend  hand  on  even  the 
rumour  of  more  than  one  treacherous  deed — and  that, 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  437 

a  blow  in  hot  fight,  dealt  for  the  sake  of  her  friends, 
may  perhaps  be  pardoned  her.  Loyalty  may  even 
be  said  to  have  been  her  undoing.  Jean  was  a 
faithful  Jacobite,  and  after  the  '45  Carlisle  was  a 
dangerous  place  for  the  friends  of  Prince  Charlie.  On 
a  Fair  day  there,  in  1747,  the  old  gypsy  gave  vent 
to  sentiments  that  roused  all  the  antagonism  of  a 
mob  that  had  been  made  to  cringe  by  a  Jacobite 
army  so  short  a  time  before.  Ducking  in  the  Eden 
was  adjudged  the  only  fit  punishment  for  her  crime, 
so  Jean  was  laid  hold  on  by  cruel,  willing  hands,  and 
soused  in  the  river.  She  was  an  old  woman,  but  she 
was  one  of  magnificent  physique,  and  she  fought  like 
a  tigress.  Each  time  that  her  head  was  allowed  above 
water  she  cried  aloud  the  confession  of  the  faith  in 
which  she  died, — t  Chairlie  yet !  Chairlie  yet  ! '  It 
was  enough  to  inflame  with  a  lust  for  murder  the 
brutes  who  had  appointed  themselves  her  judges,  and 
again  and  again  she  was  plunged  into  the  water  and 
held  down.  So  did  her  loyal  voice  grow  faint  and 
fainter,  and  it  was  a  murdered  corpse  that  was  laid  at 
last  upon  the  river  bank. 

The  personality  of  Jean's  grand-daughter,  Madge 
Gordon,  is  one  that  is  not  yet  forgotten  on  the 
Border.  c  She  was  a  remarkable  personage — of  a 
very  commanding  presence,  and  high  stature,  being 
nearly  six  feet  high.  She  had  a  large  aquiline  nose, 
penetrating  eyes,  even  in  her  old  age,  bushy  hair  that 


438  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

hung  around  her  shoulders  from  beneath  a  gypsy 
bonnet  of  straw,  a  short  cloak  of  peculiar  fashion, 
and  a  long  staff  nearly  as  tall  as  herself.  I  remember 
her  well : — every  week  she  paid  my  father  a  visit  for 
her  awmous,  when  I  was  a  little  boy,  and  I  looked 
upon  Madge  with  no  common  degree  of  awe  and  terror. 
When  she  spoke  vehemently  (for  she  made  loud  com- 
plaints) she  used  to  strike  her  staff  upon  the  floor,  and 
throw  herself  into  an  attitude  which  it  was  impossible 
to  regard  with  indifference.  She  used  to  say  that  she 
could  bring,  from  the  remotest  parts  of  the  island, 
friends  to  avenge  her  quarrel,  while  she  sat  motionless 
in  her  cottage  ;  and  she  frequently  boasted  that  there 
was  a  time  when  she  was  of  still  more  considerable 
importance,  for  there  were  at  her  wedding  fifty 
saddled  asses,  and  unsaddled  asses  without  number.' 
Of  her  Sir  Walter  writes,  '  Dr.  Johnson  had  a  shadowy 
recollection  of  Queen  Anne  as  a  stately  lady  in  black, 
adorned  with  diamonds,  so  my  memory  is  haunted 
by  a  solemn  remembrance  of  a  woman  of  more  than 
female  height,  dressed  in  a  long  red  cloak,  who  com- 
menced acquaintance  by  giving  me  an  apple,  but 
whom,  nevertheless,  I  looked  upon  with  as  much  awe 
as  the  future  doctor,  High  Church  and  Tory  as  he 
was  doomed  to  be,  could  look  upon  the  queen.' 

It  is  not  many  years  since  there  died  one  whose 
account  of  a  race  between  him  and  Madge  Gordon, 
her  elf  locks  and  red  cloak  flying  behind  her,  and  her 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  439 

long  staff  in  her  hand,  was  one  well  worth  listening  to. 
The  old  man  was  a  boy  then,  the  encounter  took  place 
on  a  lonely  road  near  Denholm,  and  the  blood  of  the 
gypsy,  who  had  fancied  he  mocked  at  her,  was  up  to 
murder  pitch.  No  wonder  that  the  luckless  lad 
believed  it  to  be  a  race  with  death,  and  gave  himself 
up  for  lost  when  he  could  run  no  more,  and  was 
clutched  by  brawny  brown  hands.  But  Madge  tried 
her  victim  before  she  punished  him.  She  asked  his 
name  and  condition.  His  father  was  invariably  kind 
to  gypsies,  and  both  he  and  the  boy's  grandfather,  a 
sheriff  clerk  of  Selkirkshire,  had  done  much  for  her 
starving  people  in  l  the  dear  year.'  So  Andrew  Currie 
was  set  free  with  an  admonition,  and  lived  to  do  the 
groups  of  Sir  Walter's  characters  that  are  round  his 
monument  in  Edinburgh  to-day. 

Madge's  powers  of  divination  were  firmly  believed  in. 

'  Ay,  ye  've  a  bonny  family,  but  there  's  sair,  sair 
dule  an*  wae  for  the  best  an'  the  bonniest  o'  them,' 
was  her  greeting  to  a  proud  mother  who  brought  her 
handsome  children  to  the  gypsy  encampment  up  the 
Ettrick  road,  to  do  honour  to  the  gypsy  queen.  The 
mother  was  not  likely  to  forget  a  prophecy  of  such 
evil  omen,  and  when  he  who  was  to  her  her  '  best  and 
bonniest,'  a  fine  lad  of  twenty-one,  fell  as  he  carried 
the  flag  of  the  94th  on  to  the  ramparts  of  Badajos, 
Madge  Gordon's  words  were  supposed  to  be  fulfilled. 

Whatever  the  gypsy  vices  may  have  been,  ingratitude 


440  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

was  not  one  of  them.  '  Benefits  forgot,'  was  a  thing  to 
them  unknown.  4  Glee-neckit '  Will  Faa,  King  of  the 
Yetholm  gypsies  during  part  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
was  over  eighty  when  he  heard  of  the  serious  illness 
of  Nisbet  of  Dirleton,  his  generous  friend  through 
many  years.  He  lost  no  time,  but  set  off  in  patriarchal 
fashion  with  his  tribe,  their  horses,  tents,  and  asses, 
from  Yetholm  to  Dirleton  in  East  Lothian.  The 
dying  laird  was  able  to  see  him,  and  gave  him  the 
kindest  of  welcomes,  and  Will  travelled  on  to  Edin- 
burgh, which  still  was  to  him  an  unknown  city.  A 
few  days  later  some  Border  farmers  encountered  him 
on  the  North  Bridge,  and  Will  threw  up  his  old  brown 
hat  for  joy  as  he  proudly  told  them  that  he  had  seen 
the  laird  before  he  died.  Very  shortly  afterwards, 
as  he  was  on  his  homeward  way,  at  Coldingham, 
death  also  claimed  the  gypsy  king,  and  in  the  funeral 
procession  from  Coldingham  to  Yetholm,  three  hun- 
dred asses  with  their  gypsy  riders  did  honour  to  the 
might  of  Will  Faa's  name. 

The  minister  of  Yetholm,  a  certain  Mr.  Leek,  was 
a  good  friend  to  Will  Faa,  and  had  the  Christian 
charity  to  be  to  his  faults  a  little  blind.  Late  one 
evening  the  minister  was  riding  home  from  paying  a 
pastoral  visitation  in  the  Northumbrian  part  of  his 
parish.  Realising  that  he  was  going  to  be  benighted, 
he  took  a  short  cut  by  a  drove  road  between  the  hills, 
known  as  the  Staw.  He  knew  that  he  had  to  pass  a 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  441 

deserted  shepherd's  cottage,  reputed  to  be  haunted, 
but  disembodied  spirits  had  no  terrors  for  this  worthy 
man.  As  he  drew  near  the  cottage,  however,  he 
could  see,  in  the  dusk,  some  figures  lurking  behind 
the  bourtrees  in  the  overgrown  garden,  and  from 
behind  a  curtain  that  had  been  hung  up  where  once 
there  had  been  the  cottage  door,  he  saw  a  '  grim 
visage '  peering  out.  Not  long  did  it  peer.  Its 
owner  dashed  forth,  seized  the  horse's  bridle,  and 
demanded  the  minister's  money. 

4  Dear  me,  William,'  was  Mr.  Leek's  gentle  response, 
*  can  this  be  you  ?  Ye  're  surely  no'  serious  wi'  me  ? 
Ye  wadna  sae  far  wrang  your  character  for  a  good 
neighbour  for  the  trifle  I  hae  to  gie  ye  ?  ' 

1  Lord  saif  us,  Maister  Leek ! '  said  the  amazed 
William,  dropping  the  rein  and  hastily  raising  his  hat, 
4  whae  wad  ha'  thocht  o'  meetin'  ye  oot  owre  here- 
away ?  Ye  needna  gripe  for  ony  siller  to  me ;  I 
wadna  touch  a  plack  o'  your  gear,  nor  hurt  a  hair  o' 
your  heid,  for  a'  the  gowd  o'  Tividale.  I  ken  ye  '11 
no'  do  us  an  ill  turn  for  this  mistak,  an'  I  '11  e'en  see 
ye  safe  through  the  eerie  Staw — it 's  no'  reckoned 
a  very  canny  bit,  mair  ways  nor  ane ;  but  I  wat 
ye  '11  no'  be  feared  for  the  deid,  an'  I  '11  tak  care  o' 
the  leevinV 

So  the  minister  was  safely  convoyed  into  less  lonely 
regions,  where  neither  spirits  nor  men  were  likely 
to  harm  him,  and  a  delicate  silence  was  always 


442  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

preserved  between  Mr.  Leek  and  his  neighbour  with 
regard  to  this  little  incident  in  their  friendship. 

Ere  the  gypsies  fell  from  their  high  estate,  they  left, 
in  the  Border,  memorials  of  more  than  one  bloody 
battle.  Such  was  the  battle  of  Romanno  in  Peebles- 
shire,  between  the  Shaws  and  the  Faas.  There  were 
of  the  Faas  four  brethren  and  a  brother's  son,  and  of 
the  Shaws  a  father  and  three  sons,  with  several  women 
on  each  side.  Old  Sandy  Faa — '  a  bold  and  proper 
fellow ' — was  killed,  as  was  also  his  wife,  then  with 
child,  and  his  brother  George  was  dangerously 
wounded.  For  this,  four  months  later,  in  February 
1678,  Robin  Shaw  and  his  four  sons  swung  in  the 
Grassmarket,  '  Bluidy  Mackenzie  '  varying  his  some- 
what monotonous  labours  as  King's  Advocate  with 
Covenanters  as  quarry  to  hang  this  little  batch  of  the 
uncovenanted  heathen.  John  Faa  was  hanged  a 
few  days  later,  also  for  murder. 

In  1772  there  took  place  the  battle  of  Hawick  Brig, 
in  which  Ruthvens — with  their  chief,  known  as  the 
'  Earl  of  Hell ' — Kennedys  and  Taits  were  all  furiously 
engaged,  and  in  which  Jean  Gordon  herself  struck 
some  shrewd  blows,  and  one  most  treacherous  one. 
According  to  the  chronicler  '  Every  one  engaged  in  it, 
save  Alexander  Kennedy,  was  severely  wounded,  and 
the  ground  on  which  they  fought  was  wet  with  blood.' 

So  desperate  were  the  gypsy  battles  that,  more 
than  once,  the  fencibles  of  the  district  had  to  be  called 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  443 

out  to  enforce  peace,  though  in  the  Border  one  has  no 
tales  of  sieges,  such  as  that  endured  one  Sunday  by 
Sir  John  Clerk  of  Penicuik,  who,  in  the  face  of  heavy 
odds,  had  to  defend  his  house  against  a  furious  gypsy 
band.  They  were  indeed  a  force  to  be  reckoned  with, 
even  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  when 
Jane  Welsh  Carlyle's  gypsy  ancestors,  the  Baillies, 
rode  fine  horses,  wore  long  green  riding  coats,  cocked 
hats,  boots,  and  spurs,  and  were  armed  with  broad- 
swords, while  the  ladies  of  the  tribe  were  also  hand- 
somely mounted  and  finely  attired  on  the  days  when 
they  rode  to  the  country  fairs.  A  gallant  lover 
enough,  no  doubt,  was  Johnnie  Faa,  with  whom  the 
Countess  of  Cassilis  fled  from  her  husband. 

'  The  gypsies  cam  to  our  gude  lord's  yett, 

And  O  but  they  sang  sweetly  ; 
They  sang  sae  sweet  and  sae  very  complete 
That  doun  cam  our  fair  lady. 

"O  come  with  me,"  says  Johnnie  Faa, 

"  O  come  with  me,  my  dearie  ; 
For  I  vow  and  I  swear,  by  the  hilt  o'  my  sword, 

That  your  lord  shall  nae  mair  come  near  ye."  ' 

There  are  only  a  very  few  of  the  real  old  '  Sara- 
cens '  left  now  on  the  Border.  Intermarriage  with 
peasant  stock,  or  mesalliance  with  members  of  the 
mere  tramping  population  of  Irish  or  Scottish  origin, 
have  thinned  the  ranks  of  a  peculiar  people.  Yet, 
here  and  there,  in  Border  lanes  or  on  commons,  one 


444  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

still  comes  across  their  encampments,  and  at  the 
few  remaining  Border  fairs  they  muster  gallantly. 
4  Muggers  '  is  the  degenerate  title  which  they  now 
possess,  but  at  Yetholm  one  may  still  see  men,  women, 
and  children,  dark-eyed  and  brown- skinned,  and 
owning  a  dialect  of  their  own.  Little  gypsy  colonies 
are  still  found  in  Berwick,  Selkirk,  Kelso,  Jedburgh, 
Coldstream,  and  in  other  Border  towns,  and  most  of 
the  Border  villages  own  at  least  one  family  of  the 
true  '  mugger  '  type.  Midlem,  the  little  white-housed 
village  that  suns  itself  on  the  slope  looking  southward 
to  the  Cheviots,  midway  between  the  Eildons  and  the 
Yarrow  hills,  owns  a  dark-skinned  family  of  Douglases, 
strangely  out  of  place  in  a  hamlet  famed  as  a  strong- 
hold of  Original  Seceders — the  staunch  '  Auld  Lichts.' 
Intermarriage  with  the  people  of  the  land  may  have 
changed  the  habits  of  some  of  the  '  Egyptians.'  Yet 
the  gypsy  spirit  is  ineradicable.  They  who  come  of 
gypsy  stock  are  almost  always  l  children  of  water,' 
restless  as  the  sea.  To  them  the  open  road  is  ever 
dear,  and  even  after  generations  of  admixture  with 
sound  Scottish  blood,  the  gypsy  eyes — the  soft, 
dreamy,  dark  eyes  of  the  Oriental — are  sure  to  re- 
appear, the  gypsy  nature  to  reassert  itself. 

It  was  only  to  be  expected  that,  to  the  gypsies, 
smuggling  was  a  delightfully  congenial  employment. 
When  reiving  was  no  longer  the  mode  on  the  Border, 
the  inherent  lawlessness  of  the  Border  folk  still  found 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  445 

an  outlet  in  baffling  the  excisemen,  and  the  gypsies 
were  invaluable  allies.  Illicit  stills  abounded  amongst 
the  hills,  and  collies  with  bladders  strapped  across 
their  backs  often  baffled  the  gaugers  as  they  carried 
the  Border  brewed  '  mountain  dew  '  to  certain  places 
on  the  English  side.  At  Yetholm,  at  one  time,  one- 
fifth  to  one-sixth  of  the  population  was  engaged 
in  smuggling,  while  there  was  annually  sold  from 
Yetholm  £10,000  to  £20,000  worth  of  whisky.  At 
Boulmer  on  the  Northumberland  coast,  at  Eyemouth, 
and  at  many  another  spot  on  the  rugged  Berwickshire 
coast — more  especially  at  those  places  where  on 
stormy  days  the  North  Sea  rushes,  foaming,  up  dark 
caves  that  seem  still  to  keep  the  horror  of  bloody 
deeds  in  long  past  days — the  smugglers  plied  their 
trade. 

The  son  of  «  Glee-neckit  Will,'  young  '  Wull  Faa,' 
a  sturdy  ruffian,  equally  famed  for  his  skill  as  pugilist 
and  as  fiddler,  was  a  distinguished  smuggler  in  his  day, 
and  many  a  cargo  of  Hollands  did  he  safely  bring  from 
the  coast  by  the  lonely  hill  roads.  One  night,  on  their 
way  from  Boulmer,  he  and  his  men  were  surprised  by 
a  party  of  gaugers,  and  a  fierce  fight  followed.  Will 
had  at  last  to  take  to  flight.  The  chase  was  hot. 
He  jumped  his  horse  over  a  dike  to  get  to  the  open 
country,  but  a  mounted  exciseman  followed  him, 
found  the  gypsy  chief's  horse  stuck  in  a  bog,  and  its 
rider  practically  at  his  mercy.  It  took  more  than  that, 


446  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

however,  to  daunton  Will  Faa.  With  a  heavy  cudgel 
he  parried  his  adversaries'  cutlass  blows  until  his 
weapon  was  whittled  to  pieces  and  his  right  hand 
shorn  to  the  bone. 

*  Give  in !  or  I  '11  cut  off  your  head ! '  said  the 
representative  of  the  law. 

Ruefully  Will  did  as  he  was  bid. 

*  Ye  've  spoilt  the  best  bow  hand  in  Scotland,'  was 
all  the  complaint  he  made,  as  he  looked  at  his  helpless 
hand. 

'  There  is  canny  Will  Faa  o'  Kirk  Yetholm, 

He  lives  at  the  sign  o'  the  Queen  ; 
He  got  a  great  slash  i'  the  hand 
When  comin'  frae  Boumer  wi'  gin.' 

Only  a  few  years  ago,  the  pulling  down  of  old 
houses  at  the  little  village  of  Spittal,  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Tweed,  did  away  with  the  traces  of  some  of  the 
last  of  the  Border  smugglers,  one  of  whom  was  tried 
and  '  justified '  at  Jedburgh  in  the  days  when  Sir 
Walter  was  sheriff. 

The  eighteenth  century  was  very  near  its  close 
when  Jedburgh  saw  the  execution  of  yet  another 
smuggler,  Jimmy  Trotter  by  name.  Jimmy  was  a 
stalwart  villain,  big  alike  in  frame  and  in  daring.  His 
crime  was  the  theft  of  an  old  horse,  worth  thirty 
shillings,  and,  for  this,  he  was  condemned  to  die. 
During  his  trial  his  wife  sat  by  him,  her  baby  at  her 
breast,  and,  as  he  listened  to  the  evidence,  the  criminal 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  447 

would  ever  and  again  put  out  his  hand  and  pat  the 
child.  When  sentence  was  given,  his  wife  sobbed 
heart-breakingly,  but  Jimmy  said  never  a  word.  As 
his  gaolers  brought  him  out  of  court,  he  threw  out  his 
arms,  in  wrath  or  in  despair — *  My  dying  day  is  fixed 
for  the  25th,'  he  said  to  the  onlookers,  and,  with  a 
sweep  of  his  arms  that  was  like  that  of  a  scythe,  he 
mowed  down  half  a  dozen  of  those  on  either  side  of  him. 
In  prison  he  was  chained  to  a  block  of  stone  from  a 
neighbouring  quarry,  but  easily  he  jerked  the  chain 
from  its  rivet  and  carried  the  rock  from  the  middle 
of  his  cell  to  block  his  door.  He  might  have  stood  a 
siege  from  this  well-fortified  position  and  won  in  the 
end,  but  he  owned  a  reiver's  heart — too  soft  where 
gratitude,  and,  more  especially,  gratitude  towards 
women,  was  concerned — and  it  was  his  undoing.  He 
made  his  escape  one  night,  but  his  gaoler's  wife  had 
been  kind  to  him,  and  he  lingered  to  thank  her.  His 
gratitude  cost  him  his  life.  Jimmy  was  seized  ere  he 
was  well  away,  and  met  his  death  on  the  gallows  of 
Jedburgh  *  with  gleeful  heroism  and  a  stout  heart.' 

Many  times,  as  we  talk  of  the  romance  that  still 
lingered  on  the  Border  in  the  eighteenth  century  and 
early  in  the  nineteenth,  we  are  apt  to  use  the  phrase 
*  in  Sir  Walter's  day.'  In  Sir  Walter's  day  there 
still  were  smugglers  and  gypsies,  still  those  who 
believed  in  witchcraft  and  fairies.  There  were  still 
fairs  to  be  looked  forward  to  from  year  to  year  by 


448  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

eager  country  folk  who  there  couped  horses,  replen- 
ished household  furnishings,  bought  blue  ribbons  for 
fair  maids,  and  gingerbread  cavaliers,  well  carraway- 
seeded,  for  children,  and  who,  not  unfrequently, 
ended  a  thoroughly  enjoyable  day  by  taking  part  in  a 
handsome  tulzie  where  fierce  blows  were  given  as 
willingly  as  in  the  old  reiving  times.  At  the  fairs 
the  Border  war-cries  were  heard  when  otherwise  they 
were  well-nigh  forgotten.  '  Jethart's  here  ! '  meant  a 
bad  hour  for  some  of  the  Hawick  callants  with  their 
counter-cry  of  '  Teribus  ! '  while  at  Bellingham  Fair 
heads  were  cracked  by  the  men  of  the  wild  glens  of 
the  Tarret  and  Tarset  burns  to  the  accompaniment  of 

'  Tarret  and  Tarset  head 
Hard  and  heather  bred, 
Yet— yet— yet ! ' 

And  woe  betide  the  head  that  was  cudgel  banged 
at  that  last  '  Yet: 

In  Sir  Walter's  day  it  was,  too,  that  churchyards 
at  night  came  to  possess  fresh  terrors  for  children  and 
for  timid  wayfarers.  Many  a  tale  of  the  resurrec- 
tionists and  their  ghoulish  crimes  still  lingers  on  the 
Border.  At  Coldingham  there  is  yet  to  be  seen  a 
house  with  the  well-arranged  appliances  of  those  whose 
trade  was  that  of  desecrating  graves,  and  the  rusty 
iron  cages  that  still  cover  grass-grown  mounds  in  the 
little  country  kirkyards  tell  of  the  anxious  care  of 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  449 

those  who  would  fain  have  protected  from  human 
jackals  the  graves  that  they  held  dear. 

In  Sir  Walter's  day  the  presence  of  French  prisoners 
gave  a  touch  of  romance  and  some  extra  life  to  the 
society  of  the  sleepy  little  Border  towns  in  which  they 
spent  their  days  of  exile.  And  it  was  in  his  day  that 
the  Border  people  showed  that  they  still  were  fighting 
men,  and  that  under  a  foxhunter's,  a  ploughman's,  a 
minister's,  or  a  weaver's  coat  there  still  beat  the  fear- 
less heart  of  the  Border  bred.  The  firing  of  the 
beacons  at  the  False  Alarm  of  1804  brought  out  as 
gallant  a  muster  of  men  to  fight  the  French  as  had  ever, 
in  the  days  of  their  ancestors,  gone  forth  to  fight  their 
English  foes.  Sir  Walter  was,  of  course,  that  night 
out  with  his  troop,  glorying  in  the  fine  gallantry  of  it 
all.  '  Fear  is  an  evil  that  has  never  mixed  with  my 
nature,'  he  himself  has  written. 

It  is  a  land  of  romance,  this  Border  land  of  ours, 
and  many  there  are  who  come  to  it  now  from  far 
across  the  sea,  as  pilgrims  seeking  a  shrine.  It  has 
become  a  favoured  pilgrimage  for  our  kind  American 
cousins,  some  of  whom  come  with  a  perfect  realisation 
of  their  reasons  for  coming,  and  with  a  most  generous 
appreciation  of  all  that  they  see.  To  them,  as  to  us, 
it  is  an  enchanted  land,  but  their  eyes  might  never 
have  beheld  it,  or  might  have  beheld  it  blindly,  had  it 
not  been  revealed  to  them  by  the  magic  touch  of  the 
wizard,  Walter  Scott. 


450  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

'  I  have  brought  you  like  the  pilgrim  in  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  to  the  top  of  the  Delectable  Mountains,  that 
I  may  show  you  all  the  goodly  regions  hereabouts. 
Yonder  is  Lammermuir  and  Smailholm ;  and  there 
you  have  Galashiels  and  Torwoodlee,  and  Gala  Water  ; 
and  in  that  direction  you  see  Teviotdale  and  the  Braes 
of  Yarrow,  and  Ettrick  stream  winding  along  like  a 
silver  thread  to  throw  itself  into  the  Tweed.' 

So  said  Scott  to  Washington  Irving,  but  it  is  not  the 
mere  geographical  lie  of  the  land  that  he  showed.  He 
made  the  dead  past  live  again.  He  showed  the  very 
heart  and  soul  of  the  Border  people,  one  of  whom  he 
was  so  proud  to  be. 

As  we  look  along  the  gloriously  wide  stretch  of 
Border  country  on  a  clear  autumn  day,  with  sun  on 
the  russet  and  golden  and  green  of  the  opulent  Tweed- 
side  woods,  sun  on  the  long  blue  line  of  hills  that  runs 
from  the  Solway  to  the  North  Sea,  the  grey  peel 
tower  of  Smailholm  on  its  dun-coloured  hill  speaks  to 
us  of  the  little  lame  boy  who  lay  there  through  the 
long  days,  drinking  in  with  eager  heart  and  eager  eyes 
all  the  beauty  and  poetry  of  the  land  that  he  was  so 
completely  to  make  his  own.  From  every  place  on 
the  Border  he  yet  speaks  to  us.  In  the  grey  ruins 
of  Melrose  lies  the  Bruce's  heart,  but  Sir  Walter's 
heart  has  found  a  wider  resting-place.  Himself  he 
records  that  he  knew  old  men  who  had  lived  in  Prince 
Charlie's  day,  and  who  could  not  speak  of  him  dry- 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  451 

eyed.  One  is  glad  to  have  known  men  who  knew 
Sir  Walter  and  whose  eyes  filled  as  they  spoke  of  him 
who  ruled  the  Border,  who  rules  the  hearts  of  the 
Scottish  people,  as  few  kings  have  ever  done. 

He  was  no  king  who  sat  aloof,  wielding  a  pen  as 
sceptre,  ruling  despotically  from  afar.  He  was  one 
of  the  few  who  had  come  into  the  world  loving  all 
humanity,  with  a  heart  great  enough  to  understand 
the  hearts  of  all  other  men,  and,  so  understanding, 
being  all-merciful.  '  Tout  comprendre,  c'est  tout  par- 
donner.9 

1  He  speaks  to  every  man  as  if  they  were  blood 
relations,'  is  the  testimony  of  one  of  his  own  servants. 
Who  can  wonder  that  he  made  of  all  the  world  his 
servants,  and  that  his  kingdom  is  one  that  goes  on 
from  generation  to  generation  ? 

What  heart  that  knows  him  does  not  ache  at  the 
thought  of  those  weary  years  when  he  fought  a  Homeric 
fight  with  evil  fortune  and  with  cruel  disease.  His 
wounds  were  deep  ;  his  genius  was  maimed,  his 
happiness  slain,  yet,  to  the  end,  he  fought  on. 

To  Lockhart  at  Douglas  he  quoted,  so  shortly 
before  his  fight  was  ended,  the  old  ballad  that  he 
loved — 


My  wound  is  deep,  I  fain  would  sleep ; 

Take  thou  the  vanguard  of  the  three, 
And  hide  me  by  the  bracken  bush 

That  grows  on  yonder  lilye  lee. 


452  A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 

O  bury  me  by  the  bracken  bush 

Beneath  the  blooming  brier, 
Let  never  living  mortal  ken 

That  a  kindly  Scot  lies  here.' 

At  the  end,  he  gently  slept.  4  It  was  a  beautiful 
day — so  warm  that  every  window  was  wide  open — 
and  so  perfectly  still,  that  the  sound  of  all  others 
most  delicious  to  his  ear,  the  gentle  ripple  of  the  Tweed 
over  its  pebbles,  was  distinctly  audible  as  we  knelt 
around  the  bed,  and  his  eldest  son  kissed  and  closed 
his  eyes.' 

The  Border  country  mourned  for  its  lover  on  that 
dark  September  day  in  1832  when  the  long,  long  train 
of  carriages  crept  up  the  hill  of  Bemersyde  on  the  way 
to  Dryburgh.  Black  clouds  hung  over  Cheviots  and 
Eildons,  and  the  Ettrick  and  Yarrow  hills  ;  the  silver 
Tweed  was  dark,  and  there  was  a  fierce,  sobbing  wind. 
On  the  height  above  Old  Melrose  the  procession  came 
to  a  sudden  halt.  Sir  Walter's  own  horses  drew  the 
hearse,  and  they  had  stopped  at  his  favourite  view, 
that  their  master  might  once  more  look  on  the  dear 
land  that  he  loved,  ere  they  took  him  to  sleep  amongst 
the  grey  ruins  under  whose  shelter  he  now  lies,  the 
murmur  of  the  Tweed  his  eternal  lullaby. 

It  is  not  for  us  to  speak  his  valediction.  Another 
Borderer  who  loved  him  has  already  done  so. 

4  Here  in  the  heart  of  your  own  country,  among 
your  own  grey,  round-shouldered  hills  (each  so  like 


SIR  WALTER'S  DAY  453 

the  other  that  the  shadow  of  one  falling  on  its  neigh- 
bour exactly  outlines  that  neighbour's  shape),  it  is  of 
you  and  of  your  works  that  a  native  of  the  forest  is 
most  frequently  brought  in  mind.  All  the  spirits 
of  the  river  and  the  hill,  all  the  dying  refrains  of  ballad 
and  the  fading  echoes  of  story,  all  the  memory  of  the 
wild  past,  each  legend  of  burn  and  loch  seem  to  have 
combined  to  inform  your  spirit,  and  to  secure  them- 
selves an  immortal  life  in  your  song.  It  is  through 
you  that  we  remember  them,  and  in  recalling  them 
as  in  treading  each  hillside  in  this  land,  we  again 
remember  you  and  bless  you.' 


INDEX 


AKBBA,  77,  84. 

Aedelfrid,  50. 

Aelred,  124 

Agricola,  8 

Aidan,  67-70,  72. 

Aidan  the  Scot,  49,  50,  51,  57- 

Albany,  Duke  of,  266. 

Ambrosias  Aurelianus,  36. 

Ancrum  Moor,  322. 

Angus,  Earls  of,  269,  270,  271,  311, 

319,  321. 
Annan  Street,  37. 
Anne  of  Brittany,  307. 
Apel  Ringie,  55. 
Ardderyd,  Pass  of,  49,  88. 
Argyll,  Marquis  of,  340. 
Armstrong,  H.,  252,  253. 
Armstrong,  Johnny,  189-194. 
Arran,  Earl  of,  228,  284,  319,  322. 
Arthur,  38-45. 
'  Arthur's  O'on,'  40. 
Arundel,  Earl  of,  159. 
Astaroth,  hill,  22. 
Attacotti,  the,  29. 
'  Auld  Wat,'  202-211. 
Avenel,  R.  de,  126. 
Averroes,  99. 

BAILLIE,  R.,  334. 

Baillie,  R.,  of  Jerviswoode,  380-384. 

Balliol,  J.,  142. 

Bamhorough  Castle,  45,  67,  185. 

Bannockburn,  battle  of,  158. 

Bastie,  Sieur  de  la,  267. 

Beaton,  Janet,  226. 

Beauge,  M.,324. 

Bede,  67,  77. 


Belling  Hill,  etc.,  22. 

Beltane  fires,  etc.,  22. 

Bennet,  Captain  D.,  432. 

Bernard,  124. 

Bernicia,  45, 46. 

Berwick,  142, 161,  163. 

Biscop,  Bishop,  117. 

Blackader,  J.,388. 

Black  Book  of  Carmarthen,  89. 

Black  Hill,  the,  35,  105. 

<  Black  Ormiston,'  251. 

'  Bluidy  Banner,'  the,  385. 

Boisil,  73,  76, 82. 

Borcovicus,  13,  25. 

Borthwick,  64. 

Bothan,  74. 

Bothwell,   Earl  of  (Hepburn),   225- 

247,  260. 

Bothwell,  Lord  (Stuart),  260,  262. 
Bowden,  74,  213. 
Bowes,  Sir  G.,  254. 
Branxholm,  256,  257. 
Bremner,  J.,  366. 
Brigantes,  the,  7. 
Britons,  the,  5,  48,  49. 
Broughton,  Lady,  275. 
Browning,  R.,  208. 
Bruce,  Robert  the,  144, 149-154,  166, 

166,  170-174,  182. 
Buccleuch,  Lady  of,  196,  268. 
Buchanan,  G. ,  235. 
Bukame,  Captain,  369,  370. 

CADKMUIR,  40. 

Caerlanrig,  190. 

Cairnmuir,  416. 

Caledon,  Wood  of,  39,  70,  92,  121. 

466 


456 


A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 


Caledonians,  the,  8,  10,  14. 

Camden,  W.,  200. 

Camelon,  42. 

Cameron,  R.,  359,  360. 

Carey,  Sir  J.,  276,  278. 

Carey,  Sir  R.,  178,  212,  249. 

Carlisle,  217,  415. 

Carmichael,  Sir  J.,  326. 

Carrawburgh,  treasure  of,  24. 

Cary's  Memoirs,  198. 

Cassiterides,  the,  4. 

Catrail,  the,  36. 

Cedde  (Chad),  68. 

Celts,  Celtic,  5,  21,  22. 

Charles  i.,  331,  332,  335,  338,  350. 

Charles  11.,  350,  353. 

Charles  Edward,  Prince,  394-423. 

Charltons,  the,  278. 

Chesters  (Cilurnum),  13,  28. 

Cheviot  sheep,  355. 

Chirchind,  battle  of,  50. 

Christianity,  introduction  of,  52-55. 

Claverhouse,  337,  371,  387. 

Clerk,  Sir  J.,  443. 

Cockburn  of  Henderland,  187-188. 

Coldingham,  69,  118,  169. 

Coldstream  Guards,  328. 

Columba,  50,  66-61. 

Cork,  Earl  of,  198. 

Cormac,  67. 

Covenant     and     Covenanters,    333, 

336,  354-390. 
Craigmillar  Castle,  243. 
Crannogs,  18. 
Cranston,  Sir  W.,  292. 
Croc,  Le,  235,  243. 
Cromwell,  O. ,  327- 
Crown,  the,  355. 
Culloden,  battle  of,  421. 
Culross,  62. 

Cumberland,  Duke  of,  401,  419. 
Currie,  A.,  439. 
Cuthbert,  70-86,  119. 

DACRE,  Lord,  190,  317. 
Dalriada,  49,  57. 
Darnick,  417. 
Darnick,  battle  of,  271. 


Darnley,  Lord,  229,  231,  232,  235, 

239,  240,  244. 
David  i.,  119-128,  141. 
David  ii.,  169,  179. 
Dawstane,  battle  of,  61. 
Deira,  46. 
Derby,  419. 

Derwentwater,  Lord,  393. 
Diormit,  59,  60. 
Donald  Bane,  118. 
Douglas,  Earl  of,  297-307. 
Douglas,  J.,  152-175. 
Douglas,  Lady,  362. 
Douglas,  Marquis  of,  345. 
Douglas  of  Blackhouse,  283. 
Douglas  of  Drumlanrig,  256,  317. 
Doutelle,  the,  398,  399. 
Dome  Dens  of  Yarrow,  The,  282. 
Druids,  the,  5,  22,  23,  24,  87. 
Drummelzier,  91,  92. 
Dryburgh,  123,  137-140,  166. 
Dryfe  Sands,  battle  of,  286. 
Drythelm,  134. 
Dunbar,  battle  of,  143. 
Dunbar,  Earl  of,  195. 
Duns  Law,  35. 
Durham,  299. 
Dysart,  J.,  427. 

EADOAB,  118,  119. 

Eadwine,  66. 

Earlston,  105. 

Eata,  68,  70,  73,  76,  79 

Ecgfrid,  82. 

Edinburgh,  39. 

Edward  i. ,  142. 143, 145, 147, 151, 153. 

Edward  n.,  158,  163,  164,  165,  166. 

Edward  in.,  167- 

Eildon  Hills  (Trimontium),  14, 35, 43. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  220,  249,  254. 

Ella,  46. 

Elliot,  Jean,  414. 

Elliot,  Jock,  232,  236. 

Elliot  of  Stobs,  271. 

Elliot, Sir G.,  207,  210. 

Elliot,  Sir  G.  (Lord  Justice-Clerk), 

414. 
Elliots,  the,  277. 


INDEX 


457 


Enterkin,  the,  372-375. 

Eriska  Island,  396. 

Erskine,  Henry,  361,  390. 

Ettrick,  39. 

Ettrick  Forest,  121,  126,  145. 

Eure,  Lord,  205,  206. 

Eutychus,  25. 

Eve  of  St.  John,  The,  139. 

Evers,  Lord,  318,  319,  321,  322, 

FAAS,  the,  433,  434,  435-442,  445. 

Faerie  Queen,  The,  221. 

Fala  Moss,  327. 

Falkirk,  battles  of,  147,  421. 

Fiennes,  Sir  G.  de,  157. 

Flodden,  battle  of,  307-314. 

Flower  of  Yarrow,  203. 

Fordun,  144. 

Forster,  Sir  J.,  243. 

Foster,  Sir  J.,  325,  326. 

Frederick,  Emperor,  98,  99. 

Friars,  The,  213. 

Froissart,  167,  170,  296,  302,  306. 

GAGING,  A.,  431. 
Galashiels,  417. 
Galloway,  353. 
Gateshaw  Braes,  390. 
Geddes,  Jenny,  332. 
Glasgow,  63,  66,  421. 
Goidels,  the,  5,  17. 
Gordon,  Jean,  433-437,  442. 
Gordon,  Madge,  437,  438. 
Graeme,  Lady,  197. 
Graemes,  the,  293. 
Graham,  Sir  J. ,  148. 
Graham,  SirR.,  338. 
Grey,  Lord,  196,  268. 
Grierson  of  Lagg,  372. 
Guinevere,  42. 
<  Guledig/  38. 
Guthrie,  J.,  389. 
Gypsies,  430-447. 

HADDOCKE'S  Hole,  178. 
Hadrian,  10. 

Hadrian's   Wall,   11-14,  21,  28,  30, 
31. 


Haig,R.,321. 

Hainault,  John  of,  167. 

Hall,  H.,  384,  385. 

'  Harden's  Drive,'  209. 

Hart,  Sir  R.,  304. 

Hawick  Brig,  battle  of,  442. 

Henry  vni.,  307,  317,  319,  322. 

Hepburn,  Bishop,  225,  247. 

Hermitage  Castle,  237. 

Heron,  Lady,  309. 

Heron,  Sir  J.,  326. 

Hertford,  Earl  of,  323. 

Hexham,  117. 

Hoddam,  65. 

Hodgson,  28. 

Hogg,  J.  (Ettrick  Shepherd),  208, 211. 

Holydene,  55,  122,  213. 

Holyrood,  123,  165. 

Home,  D.,  268. 

Home,  J.,  273. 

Home  of  Renton,  427. 

Home,  Earls  of,  267,  314,  342. 

Honorius,  30. 

Hornshole,  317. 

'  Hosts,'  the,  3. 

H  umber,  river,  7. 

Hume,  A.,  365-369. 

Hume,  Grisell,  375-380. 

Hume  of  Godscroft,  163. 

Hume  of  Halyburton,  378. 

Hume,  Sir  P.,  375-380. 

Hunsdon,  Lord,  255-257,  277. 

IDA,  45,  46. 
Inchkeith,  17. 
lona,  55. 

JACOBITES,  the,  392-423. 
James  iv.,  186,  307-316,  431. 
James  v.,  187-194,260,  266,  269. 
James  vi.,  92,  221,  231,  258, 291,  331, 

426. 

Jamie  Telfer,  209. 
Jedburgh,  123,  129,  130,  159,  186, 

235,  258,  392,  409. 
Johnston,  Laird  of,  284-287. 
Johnston,  Sir  James,  287. 
'  Joyous  Garde/  44. 


458 


A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 


Julius  Caesar,  5. 

KELSO,  123,  127,  128,  149,  242,  392. 

Kenmure,  Lord,  393. 

Kennedy,  Mrs.,  261,  262. 

Kentigern,  61-66,  90. 

Ker,  '  Habby,'  289. 

Ker,  Margaret,  275. 

Ker  of  Cessford,  202,  271,  273,  275, 

276,  320. 
Ker  of  Fernihirst,  202,  252,  254,  258, 

259,  272,  288,  320,  323. 
Ker  of  Graden,  268,  400,  409. 
Ker,  Sir  R.  (of  Cessford),  212,  221, 

255,  258. 

Ker,  Sir  W.,  433,  434. 
Killing  Time,  The,  353. 
Kinmont  Willie,  202,  214-222. 
Kipling,  R.,  28,  87. 
Kirkcudbright,  76. 
Kirk  o'  Field,  244. 
Knollys,  Sir  F.,  249. 
Knox,  J.,  242,273,  331,  332. 

LANO,  A.,  224. 

Latoun,  Sir  B.,  318,  319, 321. 

Laud,  Archbishop,  332. 

Lauder,  404. 

Laurieton,  Lord,  290,  291. 

Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  The,  226. 

Leek,  Mr.,  440,  441. 

Lennox,  Earl  of,  230. 

Leslie,  General,  334,  341,  344,  346. 

Leslie,  N.,  320. 

Lesly,  Bishop,  198,  265. 

Lilliard,  Maiden,  322. 

Lilliard's  Edge,  322. 

Lilliesleaf  Moor,  363,  365,  388. 

Lindisfarne,  67,  79,  84. 

Lindsay,    R.    (of   Pitscottie),    312, 

314. 

Liria,  Due  de,  394,  395. 
Livingston,  J.,  358,  390. 
Lochiel,  414. 
Loch  Leven  Castle,  246. 
Lour,  the,  40. 
Lundie,  W.,  304. 
Lupus,  19. 


M ACDON A u>,  R. ,  398. 

MacDougall,  Sir  H.,  366. 

Mackenzie,  Sir  G.,  361,  368,  382,  442. 

Macleod,  D.,  399. 

MacLeod,  Dr.  N.,  2. 

Maetae,  the,  14,  19. 

Maiden  Way,  the,  21. 

Maitland   of  Lethington,   232,   236, 

251. 

Malcolm  Ceannmore,  94-90. 
Malory,  Sir  T.,  42. 
Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  221,  223-263. 
Maximus,  30. 
Maxwell's  Goodnight,  288. 
Maxwell,  Lords,  284-288,  292. 
Maxwell  of  Kirkconnel,  403. 
Maxwell,  Sir  J.,  304. 
Melrose  (Mailros),   69,   73,   83,   86, 

106,  122,  131-135,   165,  170,  174, 

235,  319,  342. 
Melville,  Sir  J.,  260. 
Menteith,  Sir  J.,  148. 
Merlin,  88-93. 
Midlem,  444. 
Miller,  C.,  411. 
'Minstrel  Burne,'  203. 
Mithras,  25-27. 
Moat  of  Lid  del,  49. 
Modred,  41. 
Monk,  General,  328. 
Montrose,  333,  334,  336,  353. 
Mons  Graupius,  9,  10. 
Moray,  Earl  of,  304. 
Moray,  Regent,  194,  228,  236,  239, 

254. 

c  Muckle-mou'd  Meg/  208. 
Murray,  A.,  146. 
Murray,    Lord    G.,    402,   403,   415, 

419. 

Murray,  Mrs.,  400. 
Musgrave  of  Bewcastle,  209. 

NAPIER,  A.,  290,  291,  345. 
Napier,  M.,  348. 
Nennius,  41. 
Nevill,  Sir  R.  de,  162. 
Newstead,  14,  21. 
Nicoll,  J.,  327. 


INDEX 


459 


Ninestanerigg,  23,  50. 

Ninian,  54. 

Nisbet  of  Dirleton,  440. 

Normans,  the,  97,  125. 

Northumberland,  Anne,  Countess  of, 

251,  252. 

Northumberland,  Earl  of,  250-253. 
Northumbria,  46,  94. 

OSWALD,  66. 

Oswin,  68,  79. 

Otterburn,  battle  of,  301-307. 

PACIFICATION  OP  BERWICK,  336. 

Pattison,  415. 

Peblis,  W.  de,  166. 

Peden,  A.,  354,  363,  386. 

Peel  Fell,  36. 

Peel  towers,  181-185. 

Peniel  Heugh,  320. 

Pentland  Hills,  15. 

Percy,  H.  (Hotspur),  299-302. 

Percy,  R.,  299,  304. 

Perth,  Duke  of,  369,  415,  416. 

Philiphaugh,  battle  of,  344-348. 

Phoenicians,  the,  4. 

Picts,  the,  15-19,  29,  30. 

Pius  n.,  Pope,  195. 

Polwarth,  Lord,  198. 

Porteous  of  Hawkshaw,  327. 

Preston,  418. 

Prestonpans,  battle  of,  400. 

RAGMAN  ROLL,  143. 
'  Raid  of  Redeswire,'  326. 
Raiders  and  Reivers,  176-222. 
Ramsay,  Rev.  J.,  405. 
Randolph,  155,  163,  164,  165,  167. 
Renwick,  J.,  387. 
Resurrectionists,  448. 
Rhydderch  Hael,  66. 
Richmond,  Sir  T.,  159,  161. 
Riddell  of  Newhouse,  364. 
Rizzio,  D.,  231. 
Romanno,  battle  of,  442. 
Romans,  the,  6,  7,  29,  31,  34. 
Rossetti,  D.  G.,223. 
Rothes,  Earl  of,  355. 


Roxburgh  Castle,  155. 
Roxburghe,  Duke  of,  407. 
Ruberslaw,  35,  354,  386. 
Rutherford,  Sir  N.  de,  145. 
Rutherford,  S.,  389. 
Ruthven,  Lord,  268. 
Rye  House  Plot,  381. 

SADLER,  Sir  R.,  200. 

St.  Abbs,  35. 

St.  Asaph's,  65. 

St.  Boswells,  21,  73. 

St.  Clair,  Sir  W.,  173. 

St.  George,  Chevalier  de,  392. 

Saxons,  the,  15,  29,  48. 

Scilly  Isles,  4. 

Scot,  Michael,  97-105. 

Scots,  18,  29,  30. 

Scott,  A.,  188. 

Scott,  J.,  358. 

Scott  of  Bowhill,  290. 

Scott  of  Satchells,  180,  217. 

Scott,  Sir  W.,  2,  36,  116,  186,  438, 

449-453. 
Scott,  Sir  W.   (of  Buccleuch),  270, 

272  276 

Scott/W.,  of  Harden,  202-212,  361. 
Scotts  of  Buccleuch,  202,  207,  212, 

214-222,  254,  258,  259,  260,  291, 

320. 

Scotts  of  Sinton,  180,  202. 
Scrope,  Lord,  196,  216,  218. 
Selkirk,    121,   122,    127,  308,  342, 

347,  388. 
Servanus,  63. 
Severus,  19-21. 
Shairp,  J.,  330. 
Sharpe,  Archbishop,  357. 
Sidley,  Sir  R.,  295. 
Sidney,  Sir  P.,  296. 
Simeon  of  Durham,  93,  96 
Sinclair,  Sir  J.,  305. 
Skirmish  Hill,  166. 
Smailholm,  450. 
Smuggling,  444. 
Soney,  the  Piper  of,  344. 
Spalding,  P.  de,  163. 
Spenser,  E.,  221. 


460 


A  LAND  OF  ROMANCE 


Stevenson,  R.  L.,  176. 

Stewart,  Janet,  434,  435. 

Stirling,  145. 

Stow,  J.,  315. 

Surrey,  Earl  of,  200,  309-313. 

Surtees,  264. 

Sussex,  Lord,  254,  256. 

Suthrenwud,  55. 

'Sym  of  the  Ledehouse,'  156, 157. 

TACITUS,  9. 

Taliessen,  15,  22,  47,  88. 

Tennyson,  A.,  33,  43. 

Thenew,  61,  64. 

Theodoric,  47. 

Theodosius,  29. 

Thomas  the  Rhymer,  105-113,  296. 

Throndsson,  A.,  227. 

Tiberius,  53. 

Traquair,  Earl  of,  342,  349. 

Trotter,  J.,  446,  447. 

Tullibardine,  Marquis  of,  397,  416. 

Turnbull  of  Bewlie,  364-367- 

Turnbull  of  Sharplaw,  364. 

Turnbulls,  the,  186,  320,  369. 

Tweedies  of  Drummelzier,  279-281. 

Tyne  (north),  river,  8. 

URIEN,  42,  47. 

VALENTIA,  30. 
Veitch,  W.,  386. 


Veitches  of  Dawick,  the,  279-281. 

WADE,  General,  419. 

Wallace,  Sir  W.,  144-150. 

Waltheof,  132,  133. 

Wardens  of  the  Marches,  201,  212. 

Watling  Street,  20. 

Wat  o'  Harden,  202-212. 

'  Watty  Wudspurs,'  208. 

Wedale,  41. 

Weir,  Major,  351. 

Welch,  J.,  359,  360,  389. 

Westmoreland,   Earl  of,    250.    251. 

254. 

Wheel  Causeway,  the,  20. 
Whithorii,  54. 

'  Wicked  Wat  of  Branxholm,'  269. 
Wilfrid,  117. 

William  of  Malmesbury,  120. 
William  the  Lion,  127, 141. 
William  m.,  391,  392. 
Williamson,  D.,  364. 
Winter,  J.,  376,  378. 
Wiseheart,  G.,  357. 
Witch  persecution,  425-430. 
Wodrow,  R.,  357,  368. 
Wyntoun,  A.,  124. 

YARROW,  37,  39,  187,  346. 
Yetholm,  432,  433,  444. 
Young,  L.,  316. 


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